Some people were probably uncomfortable with my description of Jay Sekulow’s American Center for Law and Justice. One of the benefits of years of listening to a large smattering of radio shows over 10+ years is I have opinions.
There have been times that I have even considered putting the ACLJ in my will. David French, the theoretical anti-Trump candidate did legal work at ACLJ and contributed to at least one of Jay’s books.
The ACLJ was deliberately named to contrast with the ACLU, and is a frequent opponent of the ACLU, both in public opinion and in the courts. The ACLJ has not been timid about going into court to fight government overreach or have sessions with local city councils or school boards who get carried away. One of their consistent targets is government teachers and administrator who think the 1962 Supreme Court ruling regarding atheist Madalyn Murrsy O’Hair obligates them to cleanse public school of every reference to all religion (except Islam, of course). The most extreme example was a school banning red and green paper plates at the school’s “holiday party”.
While I agree I don’t want a public school teacher teaching me about Joseph’s coat of many colors (which I remember), cleansing history of all mention of religion is really a bad idea. If you don’t know that World War 1 was ignited by conflict between Serbian Catholics, Orthodox Croats and the Islamic Bosnians, the war makes no sense. More significantly it leaves Americans with blind spots in current events – why Germany is not afraid of Turkish immigrants, why there are Christians in Lebanon, who the Kurds are and what they want, why the Black Sea is off limits to US Aircraft carriers, etc
Over time, the ACLJ has spent less and less time talking about the United States and instead focusing on Israel. Hello, the “A” in ACLJ is “American”
To make the point, here is their web page today:
I listened in to most of the last half of the show (it is live from Noon to 1 PM Eastern) to see if David French would be on the show. What I found was Jordon Sekulow, the heir apparent son of Jay discussing the BDS movement and the ACLJ appearance at the United Nations.
BDS is the political movement spreading in Europe and on college campuses to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel for a variety of reasons, the recent conflict in Gaza being one. The movement gained its original traction from Turkey sending the “freedom flotilla” to Gaza in 2010.
Not a lot of buzz today about French. Here would be a good question to ask him – he would immediately understand the question and the 26 year old reporters who know nothing about everything would rush to Wikipedia
“Mr. French – do you believe Haile Selassie was the Messiah?”
Just a few years later, the communists did take over Ethiopia (but fortunately they let Ethiopian Airlines continue to buy Boeing planes, and not mess with the TWA-assisted airline that remains one of the best in Africa with the only real hub that offers connections throughout Africa as well as a few flights to the US). The also fly many flights to Europe and Asia ( among the destinations- China, India, and Singapore).
My friends from Eritrea have pointed out that the Yemenis and Saudis were the only people helping their independence movement, even after Ethiopia became communist. They had better memories of their time as an Italian colony (partially because much of Eritrea spoke different languages than the core of Ethiopia). They stated that they disliked the British Protectorate after WWII as cheap, unfair to their desires, and unpleasant. By the mid-80´s, the Christian´s were mostly in support of the independence movement. Coptic Christianity is their Christianity. The Coptic´s have a seat in Bethlehem in determining how to run the holy sites along with the Catholics and the Easter Orthod0x. If a Coptic church is not available (or if only an Egyptian Coptic church is available), many will choose an Eastern Orthodox church to attend).
One of my friend dated an American at Kagnew Station. She said the thing she found most impressive there were the glass sugar dispensers with a chrome top (just like in diners). She went from having servants and being well educated, to a refugee camp, to being a servant in Lebanon, to coming to America as a refugee after Lebanon blew up with its civil wars. She had a job in a lead battery factory in Highland Park, and got lead poisoning.
One other note- Several people have told me Lebanon is amazing if you get to go as the guest of local upper middle class families or higher.
Last year, when I went to the dentist, I had seen on their web site that one of the dental assistants was from Eritrea. I mentioned that I actually knew where it was and some of the history, which is probably unusual. That was mostly because of a video a few years ago about how the country was attempting to rebuild the railway that had mostly been abandoned after the colonial era ended and the war.
Of course the big thing at the moment is the dam being built on the Blue Nile and if Egypt and Ethiopia can avoid war. My memory is part of the interest in repairing the railroad was to reconnect Ethiopia to the Red Sea.
You have interesting friends 😉 I’m glad you hang around here…
I had to look up Kagnew Station 😉
Back in the day, Beirut was a place where French people felt at home. Over the years, John Batchelor has talked about Lebanon a lot – originally because of Syria’s occupation and assassination of Rafic Hariri and the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.
I have a fuzzy memory of Pierre Salinger talking about Beirut. Equally fuzzy, I want to say the context was him talking to Tom Snyder on Tomorrow – how Beirut had been the “Paris on the Mediterranean” and what a pleasant place it had been
Totally out of left field – Tom Snyder interviews Ayn Rand
https://youtu.be/cAFKnfN4bfk
Scary that I remember that from 1973
http://www.tv.com/shows/the-tomorrow-show-1973/july-15-1976-2676620/
“Reverend Lester Kinsolving” still has a radio show on WCBM. I didn’t know about his religious background
I get the sense from my friends that both Ethiopia and Eritrea are pretty blah places for them to visit right now because their governments are both doing things that are taking the joie de vivre out of life, same emotional state as America, even if for totally different reasons.
I’ve been double checking my memory. Ethiopia has allowed the Chinese to build a modern railroad connecting Djibouti (neighboring former French colony) and Addis Ababa – it opened partially about six months ago to import wheat to avoid famine
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/africa/single-view/view/ethiopia-djibouti-railway-carries-first-freight.html
If the new dam is completed, it will be a major source of electric power – but for what purpose? They are so far behind the rest of the world, there are few things they could build. Ethiopia is an agrarian preindustrial economy, growing things like coffee that are labor intensive. Who will Ethiopia sell the energy to – Sudan? Kenya? Using what power transmission lines?
Eritrea made a choice to not allow it to be recolonized by debt owed to bankers, but that also means there is no economy. So they export dental assistants…
Eritrea did start fresh and is very dubious of foreign engagements. http://www.tesfanews.net/eritrea-opposition-sites-funded-and-backed-by-cia-wikileaks/
Ethiopia is also building a new airport, as the current one is at a high altitude that taxes planes takeoff capacity.
http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-11-04-not-content-to-be-out-flying-the-rest-of-africa-ethiopia-now-plans-mega-airport-but-analysts-warn-of-funding-squeeze
The airline was the launch customer for the 787 and had profits of $175 million last year. They are buying at a big discount the troublesome early production 787´s that no one has wanted due to parts of them having to be custom rebuilt due to faulty production. They believe their maintenance crews can keep them flying along with their 13 other 787s.
http://airwaysnews.com/blog/2015/06/17/paris-air-show-ethiopian-takes-terrible-teens-787s-from-boeing/
I’m totally not surprised by that. You know I already believe Qaddaffi was overthrown and murdered by the CIA specifically because he was going to withdraw Libya’s wealth from Europe’s banks which were teetering on collapse. Other than its strategic location, Eritrea doesn’t have a lot of reasons to fight over it in a proxy war.
Eric Holder is coming around to the idea that Snowden might be the guy with the white hat after all
I was watching videos of Addis Ababa last night – textile plants, clothing factories, etc… There is some reason to think Ethiopia might catch up to the 20th century.
https://youtu.be/w32APeA9vsM
I’m much less optimistic about West Africa.
People in the West don’t appreciate how far away South Africa is from North Africa. To fly from Cairo to Johannesburg- the shortest duration flight is about 12 hours flying time, with a 1:20 layover in Addis Ababa. Comparing its traffic to Ethiopia is apples and oranges. It’s only a “hub” if your destination is in Southern Africa. It’s a destination. Addis Ababa is a reasonable hub for traveling between Europe and Asia, particularly if you want a day to adjust to the time zone differences. It keeps you well away from the Middle East and flying over Ukraine
Yes, geographic isolation was what I noticed about Miami in a physical sense, is that it is incredibly geographically isolated in terms of America. Also, it produces little of exportable value within the U.S. in terms of physical products.
It also has some of the worst produce in the country for non-local products because it is off the CA-NY route that CA produce travels. Rush Limbaugh once talked about how NY often gets the best CA produce that is shipped directly to NY.
Other food in Miami comes all the way from Ontario and Quebec. I was shocked to find cans of beef stew from Canada as the cheapest brand available, and potato chips from Indiana the cheapest available in stores in Miami. Since its coming from far away anyway, vendors from out of the south must make competitive overall bids to sell their wares in a market where prices are pretty high anyway.
Those shirts in the Ethiopia video were going to Tchibo, a German cafe/coffee chain that also sells one time only merchandise that changes every week (like the weekly stuff at Aldi). They draw you in with either cups of coffee or buying coffee to take home, and you look at the general merchandise that once it´s gone, it´s gone, and hopefully buy some.
Rush used to point out that the best place to buy seafood in a restaurant is Kansas City. Because people are willing to pay a premium price, the best fish get sent inland and the mediocre ones sold on the coasts
A counter example – the best beef I ever ate was in Colorado. There was a cattle auction site that had a restaurant where the ranchers ate. You sell lifeless tasteless beef, you won’t last long
You can get oysters in the Rocky Mountains too, but I’ll stick to the coasts for that. 😉
Western Pennsylvania has excellent meadow muffins, which I learned on the Boy Scout hike along the Forbes Trail. I also learned about electric cattle fences
Not many potatoes grown for chips in south Florida. Ditto apples for cider and apple sauce. I think they now have genetically modified apples that can grow in northern Florida… not so sure about potatoes.
In the first part of the last century, there were a lot of pineapples grown in south Florida, but trading with Latin America put them out of business except for local consumption.
There are some potatoes grown in Florida, Better Made in Detroit uses them for two months out of the year to make potato chips. They have added a bunch of states to their website as the states they got potatoes from for the two months of the year they don´t use Michigan potatoes. They used to only have Florida, and maybe one other state . So, maybe the potato industry in Florida is dying off.
http://bettermadesnackfoods.com/about
That is cool. I would have never guessed that. I would have believed oranges grown in Quebec before I would have believed that. Some greenhouses and natural gas to heat them and it would be interesting to taste Quebec oranges. The Canadian taxpayer pays for worse things. 😉