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May 25, 2012
Mark Clayton: Is Hillary's State Dept. hacking Al Qaeda? Not quite
Erika Bolstad: Temple cancels Wasserman Schultz speech
The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman: The former president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose members included the likes of Julia Child, is back with contemporary Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Sweet Noodle Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread
May 24, 2012
Jeff Jacoby: The peace process battered Israel's reputation
Michael Muskal: 'Pro-choice' position hits record low, according to poll
Chris Farrell: Are We in a Tech Bubble?
The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: PHILLY CHEESE STEAKS --- hold the steak!
May 23, 2012
Tony Pugh: More private colleges offering tuition discounts
Mary Beth Franklin: How to Choose the Right Annuity for You
Tina Susman: The wig wasn't enough: Man gets 13 years for posing as his dead mom
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen:A simple way to do fish right
May 22, 2012
Warren Richey: Can US group challenge overseas surveillance act? Supreme Court to decide
Thomas M. Anderson: Walking Away From a Mortgage
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: Enjoy a celebration of the most rich and layered flavors: Black bean, sweet potato and quinoa chili
May 21, 2012
Mark Clayton: Cybersecurity: How US utilities passed up chance to protect their networks
Howard LaFranchi: NATO summit: Who will foot the bill for long-term Afghanistan security?
Chris Farrell : Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Stephen Whiteside, Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Social anxiety disorder --- or just shy?
Guy Jackson : Victim's father regrets death of Lockerbie bomber
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: Famed chef's veal shoulder farsumagru: A festive meat course for late spring
May 18, 2012
Rabbi Berel Wein: Striving: The People of the Book's Book for (All of) the People
Steven Goldberg: 5 Great Stock Picks and the Exchange-Traded Fund that Owns Them
Mary Pickett, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Don't be forced into gluten-free lifestyle based merely on a doctor's false-positive test
The Kosher Gourmet by Carolyn Malcoun: DIY healthy lunchbox treats: HOMEMADE FRUIT BARS for kids and brown-bagging adults alike
May 17, 2012
Warren Richey: Teacher fired for being unwed and pregnant can sue religious school, court rules
Josh Mitnick: Netanyahu's 'centrist' coalition is already proving it's anything but
Steven Goldberg: Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Amina Khan: Research links coffee to lower death rates
The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Duran : Cheesy Potato Breakfast Casserole with Cheddar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
May 16, 2012
Carmen Terzic, M.D., Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: A variety of exercises can help improve balance
Melissa Healy: National strategy on Alzheimer's disease aims to halt it by 2025
The Kosher Gourmet by Joyce White : GOODNESS GRACIOUS: GREENS! 4 winning recipes that are no longer just for down-home folks (Includes expert tips & techniques)
May 15, 2012
Kristen Chick: Obama administration resumes arms sales to Bahrain despite serious unresolved human rights issues. Activists feel abandoned
Pat Mertz Esswein: Homes are now affordable again and mortgage rates are low. What you need to know before you buy
Kathy Kristof: Our Practical Investor Fights Inflation with These 6 Investments
Sue Hubbard, M.D.: The Kid's Doctor: Lactose intolerant young child? Check again
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES)
May 14, 2012
Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone
Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight
May 11, 2012
Jessica L. Anderson: Get the Best Deal on a Used Car
Jett Stone: Forget face-lifts and fake knees. Scientists have seen the fountain of youth --- and it's broccoli
The Kosher Gourmet by Chef Mario Batali: The famed chef's vegetable dish that tastes true to the season: FAVAS AND SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH POTATOES AND TARRAGON
May 10, 2012
Sergei L. Loiko: Putin sends warning to U.S., NATO in Victory Day speech at Red Square
Mary Rourke: How being a 'mentch' got Vidal Sasoon his start and fighting in Israel's War of Independence provided him with confidence and a strong sense of his own identity
Jeff Bertolucci: Get Home Phone Service for Less Than $10 a Month
The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Gleaming with its golden, crimson, and snowy white hues, this silken smooth and creamy STRAWBERRY ORANGE TRIFLE looks impressive, but is easy to prepare
May 9, 2012
Sharon Palmer, R.D. How you can reduce your risk -- or delay -- chronic diseases associated with aging
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Jewish World Review
June 10, 2011
8 Sivan, 5771
David Mamet Turns Right
By
Suzanne Fields
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Conservatives have a new celebrity spokesman-writer-thinker-philosopher. David Mamet, Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, movie director and sometime essayist, has come out of the closet.
No longer, he declares, is he a "brain-dead liberal." Now he's a wide-awake conservative. Some time after arriving in Hollywood, of all places, and at age 60, he engaged in a conversation with his Republican rabbi (where did he find one?), who gave him the books of conservative writers, such as Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Milton Friedman and Paul Johnson.
He had a dramatic political conversion.
Mamet re-evaluated his own heroes, starting with the playwright Bertolt Brecht, whom he now describes as "a show dog of communism," who theatrically criticized capitalism even as his royalties allowed him to live comfortably on capital deposited in a Swiss bank account. Karl Marx, he discovered, never earned his money, but mooched on Friedrich Engels' family, which may account for his ideas about how wealth should be distributed.
Mamet writes of his conversion to free market economics, his discovery of the errors of multiculturalism, in a new book titled, "The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture." He sounds like a latter-day Candide marooned in postmodern America, where liberals think they have all the answers for creating the "best of all possible worlds." He renders them as absurd as Dr. Pangloss, who saw even the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 as among "the best of all possible worlds."
"The great wickedness of Liberalism," Mamet discovered, "was that those who devise the ever-new state Utopias ... set out to bankrupt and restrict not themselves, but others."
Mamet first observes his own hypocrisy, recognizing the disconnect between how he acted and how he talked, "talking Left and living Right," which leads him to a collective indictment of himself and others in his generation of baby boomers, whose ideology has never quite been in sync with the real world they inhabit.
"As my generation did not live through the Depression, World War II and the agony of the immigrants who are our grandparents or great-grandparents; as we were raised in the greatest plenty the world has ever known and in the most just of societies," he writes, "we have grown lazy and entitled (not unlike Marx, who lived as a parasite upon Engels, and never worked a day in his life)."
In this scenario, liberals replace the Judeo-Christian roots of democracy with wishful Utopian thinking, belief in man in the abstract rather than the flawed human being he is: "We are told we need not produce, but may merely hope, we need not defend, but may hope, we must not consume, but are allowed, somehow, to hope for sustenance, magically, deriving from some unspecified actions of a government, which, all observe, is at best competent, and, more usually, self-serving and corrupt, whoever is in power."
His book comes out just as President Obama's poll numbers have collapsed into his lowest numbers yet, according to the latest measurement by The Washington Post-ABC News. By a margin of two to one, Americans say the economy is on the wrong track.
Mamet doesn't examine this finding, but his critique of the president's 2008 campaign slogans of "hope" and "change" are exposed for what they were, a triumph of advertising. "Hope is a very different exhortation than ... save, work, cooperate, sacrifice."
He compares vacuous appeals of liberal thinking to that of Mark Rudd, the leader of the radicals who seized an administration building at Columbia University during riots in the '60s. "We got a good thing going here," Rudd cried. "Now we've got to find out what it is."
The title of Mamet's book is meant as ironic — there is no secret knowledge, except the recognition that the federal government in its expanding power is "the zoning board writ large." Mamet's new-found hero is Friedrich Hayek, who observed that man is limited and government should be, too.
Good intentions lead to unintended consequences, whether in urban renewal, affirmative action, welfare or busing. His most scathing criticism lands on liberal education, which he regards as indoctrination in identity politics, with students drugged with self-indulgence. He passionately defends patriotism, tradition, the family (rather than the diluted "family values") and the Bible.
This is a big mess of a book, spontaneous and contemplative, wild and earnest, ferociously eloquent and pugnaciously persuasive, filled with free association, dashes of hyperbole and overwrought arguments posed in angry and edgy Mametspeak. He closes with a remark by his son, offered as something calmer with the clarity of simplicity, on the difference between liberal and conservative: "Then basically, it's the difference between the heavenly dream and the God-awful reality." How true.
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© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
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