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Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review May 1, 2009 7 Iyar 5769

The Banality of Preening

By Suzanne Fields


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Hannah Arendt was wrong. Evil is never banal. Evil is fascinating, provocative and mind-focusing. Adolph Eichmann was probably a bore at a Nazi dinner party, a dull bureaucrat following orders, but his acts forever fascinate the human mind. We try but fail to understand how a fellow human could do what he did without conscience, without regret, without remorse.


What is banal is the moral preening of those who judge the way others stand up to evil, who judge those who compromise in their human fallibility to fight evil so that the rest of us can enjoy the good (and the good life). What's banal are the pundits and partisan ideologues who get their hands dirty only changing an ink cartridge but who seek revenge on others who, acting in good faith, did what they believed was right in thwarting evil. What's banal are those who round up the usual suspects from history, usually the cliched villains of Nazi Germany, and trot them out for comparison in show trials of their fantasies.


Shame requires that these moral purists make distinctions, sort of. "I know it's offensive to compare almost anything to the Nazis," writes Richard Cohen in The Washington Post, who proceeds to offend: "But the Bush-era memos struck me as echoes from the past." Mark McKeon, who prosecuted war criminals in Bosnia, concedes that the level of Republican crimes does not approach the crimes of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, but he would nevertheless punish "the most senior government officials responsible for (contemporary torture) crimes."


The debate is not one of good vs. evil, but of moral abstraction vs. grim reality. The debate has moved from saying that "torture is wrong" — almost everybody agrees with that, in the abstract — to seeking revenge against those falsely perceived as moral enemies in our midst. It's easy to scorn lawyers who abuse the right to sue, but making lawyers criminals for the advice they offer is alien to everything we are as Americans.


Defending certain rough interrogation techniques to squeeze evil men for information that could prevent catastrophe, at a time when everyone was terrified, was commonplace, driven by common sense. Thousands of Americans were regarded as at risk of mass murder by evil men plotting mayhem. But now that the risk is regarded as small, even as nonexistent by some, and the debate has moved away from preventing mass murder to punishing those who in a moment of national peril thought the best techniques were those that were necessary — and legal.


What a difference eight years make. We forget the agony, the gruesome details of death in the Twin Towers, when hundreds of Americans faced the choice of jumping to their deaths or waiting to be burned alive or crushed under the weight of collapsing concrete. We all felt that "there but for the grace of G-d go I."


We've forgotten the sudden fear at the sound of an unexpected plane overhead (though New Yorkers felt a reprise of that terror this week when one of the president's planes flew low over lower Manhattan in a training exercise), of our suspicious glances at the "swarthy" man sitting next to us in a crowded theater, a sports arena or an outdoor concert. We've forgotten how eagerly we embraced the tedious obstacles to personal freedoms that we confront every time we board an airplane.


We forget how appreciative we were of George W. Bush that the outrages of human decency following 9-11 were not in New York or Washington but in Madrid and London. But it's not fashionable to remember all that this season. The absence of mayhem is just a happy coincidence.


Few of us concern ourselves with how this happened. We don't celebrate the illnesses we don't get. We usually appreciate the doctors who administer the vaccine. In the years following 9-11, faith in government "intelligence" was rewarded. We grew to put aside daily fears because we felt the men and women in charge really were in control. The intelligence agents were living up to their assignments. If "mistakes were made," as the passive voice addresses uncomfortable facts, we stopped making them. They're behind us now.


President Obama was right when he announced to the CIA that he wouldn't punish those who followed "Bush administration guidelines." He was right when he said he wouldn't look back in anger at the Bush administration officials who approved of "enhanced interrogation," that "this is not the time for retribution." We hope the president remembers that there's nothing banal about keeping your word.

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