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May 25, 2012

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Thinking About Faith
Mark Clayton: Is Hillary's State Dept. hacking Al Qaeda? Not quite
David G. Savage: Supreme Court limits protection against double jeopardy
Ashley Powers: A nightmare, then conviction is tossed
Erika Bolstad: Temple cancels Wasserman Schultz speech
Deroy Murdock: WWII hero Karski to receive U.S. Medal of Freedom
Kimberly Lankford: Health Coverage for College Grads
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
Clifford D. May: What Iran's Rulers Want
Michael Muskal: 'Pro-choice' position hits record low, according to poll
Chris Farrell: Are We in a Tech Bubble?
Kimberly Lankford: Switching Medicare Advantage Plans Mid-Year
Bryan McIver, M.B., Ch.B., Ph.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Understanding hyperthyroidism and its variety of treatment options
The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: PHILLY CHEESE STEAKS --- hold the steak!
May 23, 2012
Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: Baghdad talks highlight Western naivete
Tony Pugh: More private colleges offering tuition discounts
Lisa Gerstner: 4 Money-Etiquette Questions Answered
Mary Beth Franklin: How to Choose the Right Annuity for You
Art Markman, Ph.D.: Get smart: How to bulk up your creativity muscles
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
David S. Cloud and Kathleen Hennessey: Obama changes mind on Pakistan invite to NATO summit --- and then gets dissed by country's president
Warren Richey: Can US group challenge overseas surveillance act? Supreme Court to decide
Thomas M. Anderson: Walking Away From a Mortgage
Environmental Nutrition editors: The lowdown on a low-acid diet
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
James K. Glassman: 5 Stock Picks Among Online Retailers
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
Caroline B. Glick: Embracing dangerous delusions and not our friends
Steven Goldberg: 5 Great Stock Picks and the Exchange-Traded Fund that Owns Them
Janet Bodnar: How to Teach Kids to Handle Credit Cards
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
Mary Beth Franklin: Retirement Savings Tips for New Grads
Amina Khan: Research links coffee to lower death rates
Chelsea Sheasley: Social media: Is it too feminine?
The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Duran : Cheesy Potato Breakfast Casserole with Cheddar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
May 16, 2012
Jackson Holahan: The Aleppo Codex
Jonathan Tobin : Iran Declares Victory in Nuclear Talks
Anne Kates Smith: 7 Stocks That Let You Sleep Tight
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
Dennis Prager: God and Man at (and for) Liberty
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
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Get the facts on palm sugar sweetening
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES)
May 14, 2012
Richard Simon: Purple Hearts for domestic terror victims?
Nando Pelusi, Ph.D.: The privacy paradox: Surrounded by strangers, we risk isolation, anxiety
Chris Farrell: Investing Lessons from the Great Recession
Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone
Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia
Tiffany O'Callaghan: New hormone mimics effects of exercise without the sweat
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight
May 11, 2012
Rabbi B. Shafier: Why happiness will always be elusive
Charles Krauthammer: Echoes of '67: Israel unites
Howard LaFranchi: With G8 snub, US-Putin 'reset' off to stumbling start
Jeremy J. Siegel: Investors, Relax About Rising Interest Rates
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
Clifford D. May: The Real Palestinian Refugee Problem
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
Harvard Health Letters: Palliative care: Underused therapy yields surprising benefits
Jeff Bertolucci: Get Home Phone Service for Less Than $10 a Month
Rachel L. Sheedy and Susan B. Garland : Make the Right Moves to Boost Benefits
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
John Rosemond: Parents, stop destroying the American male
Valerie J. Nelson: Maurice Sendak, author of 'Where the Wild Things Are,' dies at 83
Bob Frick: Angst Over Annuities
Sharon Palmer, R.D. How you can reduce your risk -- or delay -- chronic diseases associated with aging
Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Why did my blood pressure suddenly shoot up?
Lisa Gerstner: Lower the Rate on All Your Loans
The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : Springtime soba with miso sauce offers a coloful mix of fresh textures and flavors
May 8, 2012
Edmund Sanders: Netanyahu suddenly cancels new elections, forms unity government
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: Farewell to European superstate
Anne Kates Smith: 4 Stocks That Mimic Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway
Gaia Vince and Clare Wilson The Rise of Miniature Medical Robots: Fantasy Fast Becoming Reality
Paul Takahashi, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Never suffer night leg cramps
Jessica L. Anderson: Extended-Warranty Warning
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate National Chocolate Chip Day with the Best Cookie Ever (Includes techniques)
May 7, 2012
Mark Clayton: Homeland Security warns major cyber attack aimed at gas pipeline industry underway
Angus Roxburgh: Putin Decoded: World view of a Russian feeling dissed
Kimberly Lankford: Navigate a Course for Long-Term Care
Kevin McCormally How to Adjust Your Tax Withholding
Celeste Robb-Nicholson, M.D.: Harvard Health Letters: How do you treat a Baker's cyst?
Joanne Capano: Healthy Snacks for Children: The Choices May Surprise You
The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: Classic Creamy Spinach Dip with a Fraction of the Calories and Fat
May 4, 2012
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Holy 'trivialities'
Jonathan Tobin: Bibi v. Barak will be no contest this time around
Steven Goldberg: Blue Chip Stocks On Sale Worldwide
Art Pine Slow Productivity Growth a Blessing --- For Now
Sue Hubbard, M.D. : The Kid's Doctor: Are Kids Too Wired?
Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D: Foods that are good for your smile
Amy Paturel, M.S., M.P.H.: Eating Well: Foods that are good for your smile
The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Strawberry rhubarb parfaits are elegant yet simple to assemble
May 3, 2012
Michael Freund: Who's Afraid of the Messiah?
Clifford D. May: The Foggiest War
Susan B. Garland: Insurance to Cover Old Old Age
Steven Goldberg 6 Reasons to Bet on a Big Bull Market
Harvard Health Letters: Treating prostate cancer --- no rush to judgment
Larry Gordon: Harvard, MIT partner to offer free online courses
Naomi Nix : Man gets free trip to Chicago after postcard sent by mother in 1957 finally reaches him
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Intensely Italian vegetable frittata is a seriously simple standby


Jewish World Review Nov 29, 2011 / 3 Kislev, 5772

Sphinx without a riddle

By Paul Greenberg


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Reading the daily news stories out of Cairo is like following the fever chart of some disease whose course was traced long ago. And can now be found in any standard medical textbook. In this case, just look under Revolution, Stages of.

Next week's news out of Cairo -- indeed, next year's -- can be foreseen. Indeed, it has been by students of revolution, who inevitably come to sound less like poli-sci majors than diagnosticians.

Just as first-year medical students used to trudge around with "Gray's Anatomy" under their arm, every member of our diplomatic corps should be equipped with a copy of Crane Brinton's "Anatomy of a Revolution" -- if one can still be found in the rare history department that has not forsaken history for ersatz substitutes like Gender Studies or Numbers Crunching 101.

Professor Brinton, one of the good things to come out of Harvard, explained the course of all modern revolutions, that is, revolutions a la francaise, as neatly as an epidemiologist tracing the course of a familiar, parasitic disease:

The contagion called Revolution occurs as a series of successive shocks from right to left, from modest reform to the usual Reign of Terror, till a breaking point is reached (Thermidor) and chaos gives birth to its favorite child, tyranny. As surely as the French Revolution led to a Bonaparte with his imperial ways and ego.

It's all as familiar as the hubris that leads to downfall. The Greeks, like the Hebrews before them, knew all about hubris, or at least enough to ignore the familiar signs till it overcame them.

Now the Egyptians, still restive under the watchful eye of the usual generals and the batons of the usual police units, await their Bonaparte. He should appear any day or maybe year now. Perhaps in the guise of the next Nasser. Or maybe he'll be some ayatollah. Or even a general devoid of charisma, this being the age of the bureaucrat. Now even dictators must be dull.

None of the news out of Egypt should surprise. It's the normal course of a modern revolution, that is, a revolution in the French mode. Just as Paris had its Reign of Terror in the 18th century, Cairo now awaits its Holy Terror. Or for the fever to break and then recede into corruption as usual. Precisely when the tipping point will arrive, the political scientists and foreign policy "experts" can debate. But no one watching the violence erupt in one Egyptian city after another can doubt that the whole, revolutionary syndrome is proceeding right on schedule.

Events in Egypt scarcely register with whoever is responsible for making American foreign policy these days, if anyone is. Our policymakers mainly just watch, and wait for the dust to settle. And the blood.

No one in the White House seems much interested in shaping the course of the Egyptian revolution. A politic statement is issued after every massacre, but that's about the extent of its involvement. The same goes for our hidebound State Department. Over at Foggy Bottom, every historic challenge is reduced to a policy paper with no clear conclusion. Even as the vaunted Arab Spring turns into the lead-gray Arab Winter.

Our current leaders seem to have no more historical consciousness than our current crop of protesters, whose idea of revolution is to occupy the nearest public space and demand nothing in particular.

It's not that Washington hasn't been heard from. Just the other day, after the latest bloody put-down of the protests in Egypt, the usual statement was issued -- a standard form must be kept on file -- decrying the authorities' use of "excessive" force. Rather than their using only the minimal force needed to keep the people down?

It sounds like a replay of the administration's reaction to Iran's Green Revolution a couple of years back: Stay neutral till it's too late to do anything about it. Why rush? There'll be plenty of time to side with the revolutionaries after they have been crushed.

Can you remember that distant time when the president of the United States also assumed the informal title Leader of the Free World? It feels like ages ago.

Talk about out of touch: The State Department's official spokesperson has called on Egypt's latest field marshal in charge of democracy, or rather forestalling it, to keep his promise to turn power over to a civilian government sometime next summer.

Actually, Egypt's parliamentary elections or semblance thereof began this week. But its military rulers have nothing to fear from such elections, rigged as they are. A third of the 498 seats at stake in the election will be filled by majority vote in each district, which means the old, familiar names from the Mubarak era will have a distinct advantage. Theirs may be the only names recognizable on the ballot, and name recognition is what counts in these elections. (Sound familiar?)

The remaining seats are to be filled on the basis of what's called proportional representation. Those votes will be cast for parties rather than people, and each party will be given the same proportion of parliamentary seats as it draws in the elections. It's a system that gives the better organized Islamists -- in Egypt they're called the Muslim Brotherhood -- a decisive advantage over the secular parties that dominate only Western news coverage.

The more things change in Egypt, the more they're arranged to stay the same. The old Nasser-era quota system that reserves at least half the parliamentary seats for Workers and Farmers, a euphemism for the handpicked favorites of the regime du jour, has been kept in place. Shades of George McGovern's quota system for the Democratic Party's national conventions, which assured only that the delegates would be McGovernites rather than representative of the party, much less the country, as a whole. In Egypt, all is now in place for the next act of the usual charade that follows the pronouncement that all has changed.

The minority Copts, the Christians of Egypt, will not be able to attract the minimum number of votes to require any real representation in the new parliament. Besides, they're already being burned out of their homes and churches. The new Jews, they've started to leave the country, those who can make it out, just as the Jews were forced out under Colonel Nasser's great "revolution" that changed only the name of the tyrant.

As always, the victims of the pogrom will be blamed rather than the perpetrators. The field marshal currently in power has started talking about all this unrest being the product of a secret foreign conspiracy. (Sound familiar?) It's the next stop in the classic schedule laid down by Professor Brinton in his anatomical study of revolution. The study of anatomy was always a bit, or even a lot, bloody.

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