From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: David Keenan Vs. Rick Steves; & Links

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David Keenan Vs. Rick Steves; & Links

December 09, 2004

Read every last word of this contextual, passionate, and beautifully-written post by Seattle Sense's David Keenan, rebutting Rick Steves' recent "we must understand the terrorists" plaint in the Seattle P-I. David: you should start submitting some guest op-ed pieces to the Seattle dailies. Serious.

Yet more high-quality conservative entrants into the Puget Sound blogosphere. Courtesy of Bill Hobbs, all the way over thar in Tennessee, I've discovered The Witts. Jonathan Witt is a former literature professor and now Senior Fellow and Writer in Residence at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute's Center For Science and Culture. His wife Amanda is a Ph.D and is currently home-schooling their children. Together they have started Welcome to Witting Shire. And this post, written by Amanda, contemplates what's behind the grim faces so often worn by so many Seattleites.

The sea of blogs has many islands of sanity, we told each other. Was there really any need for yet another? The answer came, appropriately, during a trip across the Sound.
Wednesday morning we woke the kids early and took them across the water on the ferry to spend the day in Seattle. Jonathan walked to his office while the kids and I shopped at Pike Place Market, then hiked back down to the waterfront to spend the afternoon at the Seattle Aquarium.

Downtown and the waterfront were gilded with sparkling lights and dancing fountains; savory smells wafted from restaurants, as did an eclectic array of music--Pachelbel, Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Louis Armstrong. Our boys leaped from square to square on the sidewalk, determined not to step on cracks, pausing impatiently when their sister oohed at yet another window display of strange instruments, exotic animals, glittery jewels. It was a lovely day, teeming with wonder.

Yet as best as I could tell, we were the only ones on the street or in the stores enjoying ourselves. The panhandlers, of course, were angrily demanding their rightful fees, but it was more than that. The shopkeepers seemed anxious, the clerks morose, and the crowds of holiday shoppers grim as they shouldered past tables piled with local artwork. Almost everyone wore chic but mournful black; almost everyone looked harsh and guarded. Indeed, only once did someone smile a genuine, wholehearted smile when we made eye contact.

What was wrong with everyone? On the ferry home, studying our miserable fellows, I put that question to Jonathan.

He shrugged. “Their ideology is finally seeping into their souls.”

This is what he meant: If you believe that man is nothing but a random collection of atoms, geared only toward self-preservation and bound by no moral imperatives, there comes a point when all your loud demands for justice and equality begin to ring hollow in the void of the universe.....But what if all those miserable people are mistaken? Perhaps the world is a sensible place, shining with meaning and morality that is, blessedly, not dependent upon us. Perhaps after all there is something to smile about.

This blog is dedicated to restoring our sense, and with it, our sense of humor.

Apparently, they live somewhere across Puget Sound. Welcome, Witts. FYI, another Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and fine local conservative blogger (not to mention frequent guest op-ed contributor to The Seattle Times) is James J. Na, who writes primarily on national security and foreign policy. His blog is Guns and Butter.

Via Booker Rising comes this frank column from black conservative writer Gregory Kane, regarding black-on-black violence. That's a topic I covered as a white journalist in Seattle, including in this Seattle Times column (free reg. req.). Somehow, I was the only journalist at this particular, well-publicized community event. Can't imagine why. (Follow-up forums involving the same organization HAVE gotten broader play). Kane asserts that blacks who slap the "Uncle Tom" label on black conservatives obscure the real threat to their communities: the angry, violent "Bigger Thomases" (after a character in Richard Wright's Native Son) who hurt and kill other blacks.

Tom Elia at The New Editor is cracked up by The Houston Chronicle's interview with Texas gubernatorial candidate, singer-songwriter and whodunnit writer Kinky Friedman. The Kinkster is one of a kind.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 9, 2004 01:14 PM

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Comments:

Mr. Keenan's response to the Steves article is a persuasive rebuttal indeed.

The argument that American policies, not American culture, is at the root of our conflict with militant Islam has become a staple for those who wish to see a less confrontational American posture in the Middle East. It is difficult to find many reassuring historical examples of a payoff from conciliation. The French withdrew from Algieria and Lebanon; the British withdrew from Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq; and both withdrew from the Suez. None of this seems to have markedly diminished the general contempt in which these nations are held by Bin Ladin and his cohorts. An American withdrawal might well inspire the conviction that the infidels are truly on the run, but it is hard to imagine peace and harmony breaking out.

Our policy with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian problem seems to evoke the strongest criticism, but here, again, it is not easy to see how we could improve the situation. Bernard Lewis wrote somewhere that the shape of this problem is simple, even if the solution is not. It consists of three questions: Should Israel exist? If so, where should its boundaries lie? And what should lie on the other side of those boundaries? Most critics fix upon the third question, as if only American obstinance or incompetence stood in the way of a solution. But it is the first question that looks like the real sticker. So long as a substantial portion of the Palestinian population is unwilling to answer that question in the affirmative, there is not much bargaining room for the second and third.

Posted by: Tom Rekdal at December 9, 2004 04:12 PM

Here's an excerpt from a profile of Steves (admiring, of course) by Steve Ernst in the March 4, 2002 issue of the Puget Sound Business Journal:

"This past year was perhaps most difficult for Steves, as well as the entire travel industry.

"Business came to a stop for three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he said. But activity rebounded in January, which was the best month the company has ever had. [Hey, and what's important, anyway?]

"'I have never worked harder than in the three months after 9/11,' he said. [Neither did the workers extracting the body parts from the ruins of the World Trade Center.]

"For Steves, travel is the best kind of national defense, and xenophobia can be cured with a glass of wine and conversation.

"'I am really troubled by the way this country reacted to 9/11,' Steves said.

"'Suffering and catastrophe are commonplace around the world. The thought that people might not like us was a real shock to Americans. But when you are outvoted 183-2, it should cause us to take a hard look at ourselves.

"'It's much harder to bomb people after you've had tea and played backgammon with them,' Steves said."

Tea and backgammon. Let that sink in for just a moment.

Note that Steves didn't need the distance of three years to blame America for 9/11. He was doing it within a few months of the attacks. The rubble of the World Trade Center was barely cool when this issue of the PSBJ went to press.

Steves has an excuse. He's an idiot, who has about as much business pronouncing on international politics for publication as I do on cures for cancer.

But what's the Seattle P-I's excuse? What were they thinking when they published this drivel? Are there no editors there making any judgments about what's worthy to be printed in a major daily newspaper? It's good to expose Rick Steves for what he is. I'm all for that. But it's to the P-I, not Steves, that we should be directing most of our criticism.

Posted by: Jack A. at December 10, 2004 07:05 PM

Matt,
I've listened to your dad for years (I'm close to being able to say "decades"). I took Rick Steves's column as inspiration for a comment on the Left and Right on my (still very amateur) blog. Check it out if you're interested.

Posted by: Andrew Steele at December 10, 2004 08:16 PM

Boy, did Amanda ever sum it up!

I've noticed the same thing. I walk around in Seattle, seeing a city in this beautiful natural setting, with affluence all around, and people look so glum as if they are walking and seeing nothing but a ghetto.

It's amazing. It's especially visible in the women of Seattle. They apparently have been convinced by their women's studies professors that every man in their presense is a potential rapist, and if they aren't, they are propogators of the "patriarchy" and oppressing them.

It's sad really that people would choose to live in such depression. It's even worse, though, that they push it on the rest of us with cynical laws and policies that assume the worst about citizens.

Posted by: Hovercraft at December 12, 2004 12:39 PM

I find the notion that OPEC has more power "than they need or deserve" quite humorous. Especially coming right after a breakdown of the history behind U.N. Resolution 181. The oil whores that act like they are oppressed by OPEC largely have themselves to blame for its existence in the first place, particularly the U.S (the 1959 Mandatory Oil Import Quota Program).

Also, so-called black conservatives are bigger whimps than white liberals. They act like black people in general have so much against them because what they say is somehow revolutionary. Black people in general are conservative people, they just aren't Republican because black people have generally had to go to the Republican Party and as opposed to the Republican Party coming to them. You talk to the average black person and they will say hell yes we need to clean up our act, make our neghborhoods safer, and get back to God.

He has a set of balls on him to act like black people somehow embrace thugs and murderers over a conservative message. This self-righteousness is what marginalizes Kane and his ilk with the general black populace, not any widespread aversion to morals and personal responsibility.

Posted by: Rashid Muhammad at December 13, 2004 11:28 AM

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