The Case for the "Death Penalty", NFL Style; or, Goodell's Patriot Act

Academic/professorial statistical analysis always confuses me.   Add that to the fact that I'm a Jets fan [though in all honesty I've always harbored a loathing for the Miami Dolphins far more intense that what I harbor for the Pats, even in the Belichick-Brady era], and I'm inclined to believe what I see here--some highlights [or--lowlights?]: 

"Careful analytics reveal that suddenly in 2007, a strange and statistically impossible phenomena began to occur at Patriots games....Starting in 2007, the Patriots suddenly began to hold onto the football at a statistical rate likely to occur 1 time in 16,233.  A rational person might conclude this is the moment when someone on the Patriots cooked up the scheme to illegally deflate the ball...

"Patriots partisans might crow — well, what good does deflating a football do?  Simple.  It creates angles on a football that didn’t exist when playing by the rules and allows a runner, passer, center, and, most importantly, a quarterback to better grip the ball.  With the avoidance of turnovers being so central to winning football, a deflated football helps you win."

The owners currently have Roger Goodell's back, DV-gate notwithstanding.  However, I would think at this point 31 owners should demand that Goodell look into this from every possible angle--and Robert Kraft, mensch that he is, should insist publicly on an investigation even while giving up a "vote" on the matter.  At this point the league is not dealing simply with "image" of the "shield"--it's an issue of the the game's very integrity.

If the claims made turn out to have any credibility, the implications are worse than even the Terry Donaghy scandal in the NBA, because that was ostensibly one rogue official with a gambling issue that he likely kept under wraps; the steroids scandal of the post-strike MLB because it happened across multiple teams with multiple players and there were no official "rules" until after the Mitchell report; and--I may be going out on a limb here--the Black Sox scandal, because the modern major leagues were in relative infancy and the game was not adequately policed at the time. 

The NFL has no such cover.  This scandal involves:

*One team, the most consistently--and now, it seems, ridiculously--successful of the past decade and a half, and one that outpaces the consistent success of almost any franchise in NFL history over any period of time, so that unlike baseball's "steroid era", the "goods" of "cheating" were not nearly as evenly distributed; 

*A League that employs a security apparatus that might rival [or actually have better resources than] most government agencies [with whom it has extensive ties], so there's no room to make claims about "inadequate policing";

*An episode that implies--on the part of the NFL--either [or both?]: gross incompetence, because the officials responsible didn't figure this out for eight seasons; or a wholesale corruption, because enough people knew what was going on and--if they didn't abet it--didn't try to stop it.

Maybe it's a good thing for the NFL that this came out before the 50th Super Bowl.  Either way, SB XLIX is now going to be under a cloud for posterity, possibly sharing said dark cloud with the 1919 World Series, especially if the Pats win.  [Goodell should be very quietly praying very hard that Seattle wins, and wins decisively.]

Once the game is over [maybe it shouldn't even wait that long], there should be a full scale, no-expenses-spared investigation.  It should be spearheaded by the other 31 owners but primarily funded by Robert Kraft, who I think is enough of a mensch that this horrifies him [personally, I think it was all Belichick's idea and stopped with him.  At least he might have had the decency to shield Kraft].  

If there's any truth to the allegations, the following MUST happen:

The Patriots' franchise should be suspended from the League for at least one season, maybe two.  [Consider this a hybrid of the NCAA's "death penaltly" meted out to SMU in the 1980's for recruiting violations, and Sean Payton's 2012 suspension for "Bountygate".]  All 16 games are to be automatically forfeit to the 16 teams on its 2015 schedule, which means the 2015 Patriots will officially end the season 0-16. [Now THAT'S poetic.]

[This may cause some competitive imbalance, especially since every AFC East team will essentially start 2015 at 2-0, and ten other teams at 1-0, but it at least goes some way towards instituting an "affirmative action" for the way the Pats have dominated that division since 2001. More on that in the Coda.  This is one alternative; the other is a temporary divisional realignment based on the 1999-2001 31-team NFL, with an absent New England.  I'll leave that to the NFL's math people.] 

Bill Belichick must be expelled from the NFL and deemed ineligible for the Hall of Fame, akin to the punishments meted out to Pete Rose and the Black Sox Players by MLB.  He may also be subject to civil and possibly criminal sanction for fraud.  [The rest of the League should insist this happen.]  Members of his coaching staffs during his entire Patriots tenure should be grilled to determine the extent of the conspiracy.  As long it took the NCAA to act against Joe Paterno, it all but erased his legacy when it did act.  Not to compare the magnitudes of Paterno's and Belichick's particular sins, but the NFL at least has a template for forcefully disavowing one of its more revered figures, and it has good reason to.

[In theory, the NCAA's actions against Paterno and USC indicate precedents for at least attempting to vacate wins and titles.  The possibility should at least be broached even if the NFL never intends to carry it out.]

There's no reason to disband the Patriots' franchise.  However, Patriots fans should receive full refunds for their 2015 tickets, all concessionaires and other businesses that profit from gamedays should be indemnified by both the League AND the Patriots, and the TV networks should have their fees prorated based on the missed Patriots games.  Everyone has to make this right financially.  Additionally, the Patriots should be banned from any prime-time broadcasts for at least three seasons after their reinstatement.

As far as the Pats players--they should all become free agents at least for 2015.  I'm sure the League lawyers and the NFLPA can work out contractual issues, though the NFLPA might have some extra leverage because the owners will be scrambling to salvage what's left of the NFL's image.  Maybe the reinstated Patriots should be forced to undergo the humiliation of an expansion draft.  Now THAT would be a delicious irony.

Re: Tom Brady's "legacy"--it'll likely be too difficult to establish a deliberate role in the scandal as far as he's concerned, but if the HOF Selection Committee wants to maintain any integrity, they should ignore him the way the baseball writers have ignored--and apparently will continue to ignore--Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa--when Brady's name comes up for induction, as it will.  In addition, I would say that Gisele should leave him for cheating--but wasn't he still with a then-pregnant Bridget Moynihan when they hooked up?  Hmmm, I see a pattern here...

In theory, Goodell should immediately be fired and replaced with a Landis analog to perform the cleanup.  But if not--AFTER the penalties are enforced, Goodell MUST step down.  This scandal calls the entire NFL product [and recent history] into question.  This will define his legacy even more than Ray Rice, and the stink will persist the longer he holds the office.  Bart Giamatti inherited a scandal and tackled it with alacrity and integrity, pursuing all investigative avenues until acting, and it may have killed him.  Goodell inherited a scandal and either didn't police it or let it metastasize, even with his security resources.  

If NO action is taken--and the owners insist on protecting Goodell and even the Pats in the face of the evidence--then someone really smart [probably should be someone who REALLY hates football] should cobble together a mass of NFL season ticket buyers, Direct TV subscribers, even possibly Verizon customers who watch games on their smartphones [guilty], and possibly anyone with sponsorships or other business with the NFL, and institute a colossal class-action lawsuit alleging consumer fraud, the potential penalties of which might drive the League out of business [if not send some very prominent figures to prison].  That might scare the NFL even more than the spectre of CTE-driven class action suits, because there are a LOT more fans than former players.  It also might scare every NFL municipality [other than Boston?] into pressuring their owners into action saving the rest of the NFL and forestalling the possibility of the suit, because it could create economic messes rivaling Obamacare in several major US metropoli--and it would be hard to blame W for this.  Furthermore: a Dem candidate would pay more dearly for a crippled NFL in 2016 than a GOP candidate would.  You can count on it.  NFL fans vote more like "soccer moms" or "NASCAR dads"?  You tell me.

The X factor in all of this?  Fans like me who are stupid enough to keep watching.  I'll probably keep watching [and rooting for the Jets, even] even if the NFL finds an NSA-like way of sweeping this under the rug [likely with some help from their contacts in Intelligence], and even if the Pats win this Super Bowl.  I love watching the game too much even though the ride it's taken me and most of its fandom on ostensibly is not the one any of us had in mind.  At least I hope not.


[P.S. I'm revealing my obvious biases here, but bear with me.  Here's a sicker set of thoughts.  

First--consider that the historically awful Jets--my Jets--actually put together some of their better teams during this very era.  These weren't the 70's Jets that didn't break .500 for 11 years in a row; or the Rich Kotite Jets that went 4-33; or even the Joe Walton Jets that would throw 5-yard outs on 3rd-and-8.  Consider:  Herman Edwards [!] made the playoffs 3 of his first 4 years; Eric Mangini made it his first year, and probably would have made it his third year if Brett Favre's arm hadn't fallen off; and we all know what Rex Ryan did [with MARK SANCHEZ].  The Jets have a unique way of infuriating their fan base [it's kinda parta the charm of being a Jets fan], not least because the Giants have won four Super Bowls [and because Sanchez' "Buttfumble" is more iconic than even Joe Pisarcik's "TheFumble".  That's an accomplishment].   But they're not the Bills, who haven't smelled the playoffs for 15 years; the Bengals, who haven't won a playoff game since 1990; the Lions, who haven't won one since 1991 [and only that one since 1957]; the Browns, who've been there once [and lost] since their 1999 rebirth; the Dolphins, who've made it twice since 2001 [and lost both times]; I could go on.  At least from 2001 until Victor Cruz caught that 99-yard touchdown against them in Game 15 of the 2011 season, the Jets fielded some credibly competitive teams.   [And don't even suggest that they had games fixed: who else in this country besides Jets fans wants to SEE the JETS win?]

Second--that's just the Jets. Look at it from a divisional angle:  

The Jets don't get anywhere despite their relative success compared to previous eras [from 2001-10, 6 playoff trips in 10 years, vs. 8 in the previous 41].

The Bills beat Brady three times in 26 tries after their incredible run of success in the '90s [including 4 consecutive AFC titles, 10 playoff trips in 12 years].  

The Dolphins through 2006 have the best Won-Lost percentage of any NFL franchise since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger.  Since: nothing [except for 2008, which Brady misses in toto when Bernard Pollard destroys his knee in the opener at KC.]

I haven't done the research, but I would reckon if you looked at each NFL Division and examined periods where one team would dominate it still wouldn't look this one-sided.  Even considering the 70's Dolphins, Steelers, Raiders, Cowboys, Vikings, and Rams: a] that's SIX teams, and b] the bulk of the dominance predates the 1978 rules changes.   Even prior, none reach the Pats' run of 11 straight titles if you take out '08, and even then they tied Miami but lost on the tiebreaker.  This kind of intradivisional domination against a] two historically successful and generally well-managed and coached franchises, and b] one shaking off its historical incompetence even when it fails to get out of its own way on or off the field--seems to be rather unprecedented.  NOBODY is THAT good.  Not even the Yanks or Habs.  Maybe the Harlem Globetrotters...

Third--this year, in the midst of a 4-12 season, the Jets came within a pair of blocked field goals of sweeping the Pats.  [And Nick Folk had an off-year.  But maybe deflating the football affects kicking trajectories...hmmm...]

Finally--and this might be the craziest indicator--only ONE quarterback other than Tom Brady has won an AFC East title since 2001.  One.

CHAD PENNINGTON.

STILL think something ain't fishy?]

Between Useful Idiocy and Outright Quislingery: Three Stories, With Plenty More To Come

Addressing a bevy of protesters at the opening of the Met's revival of terror-sympathizing opera "The Death of Klinghoffer", former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey brilliantly eviscerated the Met's advertising tagline "See It, Then Decide":

"When something is a cesspool, you don’t need to swim in it yourself to decide what it is."

Similarly, when my New Yorker arrived and I noticed that the latest offering from David Remnick entitled "Israel's New Intolerance",  I didn't need to read it to know it was of a piece with his usual penchant for bashing the Jewish state, and, I was able to back up my assertion by questioning his entire premise in the following letter I sent to the New Yorker editors [my hunch is it won't be published]:


"Mr. Remnick might want to familiarize himself with the plethora of officially-sanctioned Judeophobic PA media propaganda publicly available for viewing on palwatch.org before suggesting that there is any moral equivalency between Israel and her declared mortal enemies with whom she is forced to negotiate with for the most trivial of political concerns, not least because while Israel attempts to grapple with "minority issues" even if they occasionally fail to resolve them to everyone's satisfaction resulting in excoriations from the likes of Mr. Remnick for her failures, her counterparts simply deny that "Jews" [again--"Jews", not "Israelis"] are deserving of any rights, if they deserve to exist at all, and are afforded free passes from Mr. Remnick and his ilk . Whether the author neglected to research the existence of streams of genocidal imprecations from the PA [never mind Hamas] and therefore exhibited journalistic incompetence, or was aware of said propaganda yet chose to ignore it and therefore exhibited moral Lilliputianism of the lowest sort is an open question. But it matters little: in either case it reflects poorly on the author and his editors."


Interestingly, someone must have made some headway with said editors, as the print headline "Israel's New Intolerance" became the web headline "Israel's One-State Reality".  With apologies to Bob Uecker, just a weeeeee bit less incendiary.

[It was pointed out to me on the facebook thread where I posted this letter than the opening sentence may run-on.  I admitted the possibility, and mused that some article headlines just make me "mouth-frothy".]

Then there was the news that a  proposed law to declare Israel the nation-state of the Jewish people was being shelved becauze Tzipi Livni had concerns about a conflict between "preservation of Israel's Jewish character [and] democratic values".  Someone should have pointed out to her that, aside giving credence to the canard that such values ipso facto conflict, she should ask the various European nations that employ various versions of "leges sanguinis", or "provid[ing] immigration privileges to individuals with ethnic ties" if they suffer any  such conflicts.  Twenty-five countries [including Israel] have some version of the law. Most are democracies. But none other than Israel has their national rights scrutinized.

What's that called kiddies?  Don't answer all at once.

Finally, let Rabbi Shmuley tell what happened when attempts were made to get Jewish groups at NYU to sign on to promote a panel refuting Palestinian genocide libels at Cooper Union:


"Unexpectedly, we met even more opposition from Jewish groups on campus than from Palestinian ones. Jewish groups would not send the simple ad to their mailing lists...[] one student leader told me exactly how he felt.  'Israel is political. Our job is to create a Jewish environment for the students and bring them closer to tradition. Why would I risk being divisive by standing up for Israel? We stay away from politics.'

"Another student leader told me, 'We have excellent relationships with Arab and Palestinian students here. Associating ourselves with your event will elicit the ire of the Palestinian students and put us in their crosshairs. Why do we need that?' [] ...

"NYU has more Jewish students than any other private university in America, but we had to fight with Jewish organizations to promote Elie Wiesel! ... [T]he non-Jewish mainstream and political organizations [] were only too honored to host Elie Wiesel, and helped to fill the hall to capacity. Cooper Union sent a mailing to every student...

"Jewish organizational leaders are afraid of being “divisive,” of being marginalized as defenders of an unpopular regime, and of being accused of defending human rights abuses. In their fear, they cede the campus to anti-Israel activists."



The Quadrangle is now Occupied Territory, bordered on one side by Useful Idiocy and on the other by Outright Quislingery.

Break Point?

I thought this started five years ago.  But I didn’t anticipate the actual level of open hostility of this administration to Israel and whether it would manifest itself during a war.

It may not have come to the forefront during Cast Lead—which was stopped cold for the first Obama inauguration—or Pillar of Defense, which, aside from the usual only-Israel-has-to-actually-follow-“rules”-of-war type restraint, was further hamstrung by considerations relating to the 2012 election.

This time it started almost immediately, with John Kerry’s probably deliberate hot mic comments, and the series of blackmail attempts with varying levels of nakedness, from the aborted FAA flight ban, to the $11B defense deal signed with the biggest financial and logistical backer of Hamas, to the “leaked non-conversation” between Obama and Netanyahu that was denied by the PM’s office and the NSC…but not the White House.

I think Netanyahu knows exactly where he stands with this President, given Obama’s general anticolonialist and Everybody-But-America-First ideology playing out in other arenas, especially pronounced in his dealings in the Middle East aside from the conflict between Israel and her neighbors.  He essentially kicked off his Administration when he performed the Grovel In Cairo in early 2009, and continues straight through his recent eid-al-fatr declarations [“Muslims built this country”--but I thought “you didn’t build that”?]

Further evidence: his unwillingness to even give a modicum of aid and comfort to the Greens in Iran as Madman-dinejad’s minions mowed them down; his banking on the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which blew up in his face when the Egyptians got buyers’ remorse, turned the MB out of office and started shooting them in the streets; his backtrack in Syria [even if not sending troops is salient, you still lose a ton of credibility drawing “red lines” you have no intention of backing up]; his failure to even deign to address the ISIS massacres and borderline enslavement of Christians in Mosul; and his attempts to allow Iran to get the bomb while he gives himself political cover for what he likely considers an inevitability [if he doesn’t believe that it’s Iran’s sovereign right to have one.  It’s also possible that he believes the Israelis will somehow take out the reactors or attempt to, and then he gets to condemn the Israelis while they ironically do his dirty work for him.]

[Something like the non-response to Mosul actually has precedent in American political history: when the Vietnamese invaded autogenocidal Cambodia and overthrew Pol Pot in 1979, the US, still smarting from the Vietnam War, condemned Vietnam.   Here the administration is hamstrung between its reluctance to condemn anything Muslim, its belief that its real genesis is the reaction to Gulf War II and the illegitimacy of having committed to that theater, and the concomitant possibility that they’d have to admit that the precipitous withdrawal might be a proximate cause.  Even if Megyn Kelly and Glenn Beck now think the right got it wrong, the days that blaming Bush would carry any weight are long over, which is why some on the right can now safely beat their breasts publicly.]

I think—aside from the counter-blackmail the Israelis pulled with the FAA ban [“You want ‘restraint’ in Gaza—we get the airport back”]—Netanyahu might sit and take diplomatic opprobrium as long as he gets to operate as Israel sees fit in Gaza, since his public is more than solidly behind him, because he’s going to force Obama to publicly reveal his endgame and finally dispense with the illusion that he’s anything but hostile to Israeli interests.   He’s slowly bringing the President to that point— where his Jewish approval is at the levels that Jimmy Carter’s was.

As I've mentioned before, absent all other reasons for Israel’s safety and security being a particular American interest, there is one almost transcendental reason: the spectre of dead Jews resulting from Administration inaction during the Holocaust.   Netanyahu is basically daring Obama to make into policy what Kissinger and Nixon could only discuss on the tapes: that another Holocaust might be a humanitarian issue but not a policy matter.

I actually don't think Obama is an anti-Semite.  [It's documented that Nixon and even Truman were.  And, according to Andrew and Leslie Cockburn--no friends of Israel--Jimmy Carter said he'd "f*** the Jews" in 1980, more than a decade before James Baker said something similar.]  But--like the pundit who said when Eric Cantor lost his most recent primary "it's not that they don't like Jews, they just love Jesus more"--it's not that Obama doesn't like Jews, he just likes their sworn mortal enemies more.  And Netanyahu is going to make him publicly choose sides and say so, which might put Obama in a political bind the likes of which haven't been seen in a long time.

How To NOT Fight To The Death

After reading Adam Winkler's Gun Fight and reading the treatment of the debate by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, I had further confirmation that there are certain issues in American life ostensibly infused with disproportionate moral import where the advocates for one side or the other, aside from the shrillness and sanctimony that accompanies said advocacy, usually conduct their debates in ways that result in their losing a considerable modicum of respect [which they might not have to let bother them] and, more importantly, credibility [which they might want to think about].

In theory, it sometimes doesn't matter which side of a debate is right. It's more satisfying to watch insufferably sanctimonious advocates for one position or another--sometimes, it's both sides in a particular debate--try not to have their brains explode when confronted with serious paradoxes.  These are especially endemic to the gun, death penalty, gay marriage, abortion and immigration debates.  Something having to do with Eros and Thanatos, perhaps; but these are more pronounced in the US than anywhere else.

The recent botched execution of Clayton Lockett further amplified the capital contradictions.  From the left, they had to deal with the fact that if there ever was a poster child for the death penalty, Lockett was it; aside from the fact that clamoring for violation[s] of his rights invariably meant that the rights of his victims were ignored or deemed less important, he continued to present a clear and present danger to numerous individuals--both inside and outside--even while on death row.

From the right, the attempts to pretend that the process is humane while state governments chase their own tails trying to purchase the needed drugs and the added Keystone Kops-like attempts to revive Lockett just made them look ridiculous. The truly honest ardent death-penalty proponents might have had to own up to the fact that somebody might figure out they actually WANT the process to be painful: the same Supreme Court that declared that executions violate the 8th Amendment when they are "nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering; or [] grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime"--aside from implying that some pain and suffering is not "purposeless and needless", and can be administered in "proportion to the severity of the crime"--went even further when it declared that "the expectation of pain and terror on the part of the defendant" was such a part and parcel of the death penalty that it therefore, ipso facto, could not be cruel and unusual.

[I've been told by various medical professionals that if states wanted to truly dispatch the condemned quickly and painlessly, 15 well-placed fentanyl patches would do the trick, the whole process running its course in 5 minutes.]

Now to keep my brains from exploding, and just in case people may have missed my previously stated positions on execution and gay marriage--and since I don't remember writing about abortion and had just a fleeting treatment of guns--here they are in a nutshell:

Guns: the 2nd amendment does allow for individually-owned weaponry AND for serious regulation of firearms [just ask Justice Scalia], even to the point that we should have a federal registry.

Death Penalty: the death penalty needs to be kept on the books for, as Rabbi Aharon Soloveitchik put it, "extraordinary threats to public order". [Clayton Lockett and Malik Nidal Hassan qualify.] But the process needs to be transparent [which states make a mockery of when they render attempts at drug procurement and compounding to be "state secrets"] and equitable [cue the associated racial/socio-economic imbroglios. Either way the system stinks.]

Abortion:  as far as government involvement goes, it should be safe, legal, and rare.  I would call its employment as contraception without mitigating circumstances [economics don't count] morally dubious at best, but there are cases beyond even rape, incest and threats to the mother's life that I think mandate that the process be allowed even up to crowning.   Personhood legislation is ridiculous; it is never equivalent to infanticide.  And any attempt to ban contraception is not even worthy of consideration.  The left has its own special paradoxes to deal with in this arena [Kristen Powers especially nails it] but basically, they are easy to explain: conservatives want small government,  less regulation and more privacy, except here; liberals want to government to protect the disadvantaged [they would sooner protect endangered animals than human fetuses, and--I won't say someone--something is getting hurt], except here.

Gay marriage: restating what I wrote in 2008--my religious principles as I understand them preclude me from full-on advocacy, but that's theology, and other than the purely theological, there is no truly logical reason to morally oppose homosexual relations between consenting adults.  Conservatives have failed to make any salient secular case for themselves in this arena and should stop pretending that it can be anything but a religious issue.  All other arguments are ontological.

Oh, and immigration: we should take a cue from Mexico's laws--2 years in the clink and deportation for the first offense, 10 years in the clink and deportation for the second offense.  And a really big wall on the Southern border.  Plus, this will have the added bonus of keeping the private prison lobby happy if they're forced to release everyone convicted of low-level drug offenses, with a much bigger pool to draw from.  Or--we could just annex the rest of Mexico and finish the job[s] we started in 1836 and 1848.

Responses to Incitement

One might understand from UN envoy Staffan de Mistura’s comments about the recent riots in Afghanistan why the UN consistently gets it wrong.

De Mistura essentially blamed the riots and the deaths that resulted on the act that ostensibly “provoked” it, the burning of a Koran in Florida. De Mistura was unequivocal in his proclamation that “free speech” did not cover offenses to religion.

De Mistura is, of course, wrong. But one might actually understand why he said it: he was afraid for his, and his charges’, lives. Especially when the victims of the riots had absolutely nothing to do with the Koran burning by any degree of separation. One wonders why American troops weren’t targeted: could it be that the rioters feared superior firepower?

Another UN’er who got it wrong was Richard Goldstone, and this week, he admitted it. The Israeli response was notable in its absolute 180 degree divergence from the Afghan response: the Israeli interior minister invited Goldstone to see for himself what actually happens when Hamas terrorizes southern Israel. One can only imagine a parallel invitation from an Imam or other religious figure to one of Pastor Jones’ congregants to see what the “real” community of Koran readers are like. [Then again, it would likely be an invitation to a beheading.]

1989? 1918? 1979?

We might think—or hope—that the spontaneous uprisings in the Middle East are reminiscent of the Velvet Revolution[s] of 1989. One might even draw a parallel between Nicolae Ceausescu and Col. Khadafy: one leader who actually resisted the uprising ended up paying for it with his life [which many are likely praying for, in this case].

However, aside from the uncertainties inherent in any sudden regime change, especially in areas with no tradition of a truly republican rule of law [never mind democratic], and aside from the fact that Iran waits to fill any power vacuums that develop as a result of the widespread agitation, one might actually find a more salient parallel with the events that took place following World War I.

Following the Great War, when numerous ethnicities agitated for homelands under the principles of self-determination and old empires that had largely been intact for nearly a century crumbled under their own weight, the map up Europe was not only redrawn but its political makeup changed overnight, largely not for the better. In many cases, sclerotic monarchies were replaced either by revolutionary dictatorships [Hungary being one example] or very unstable republics [Weimar]. And, eerily reminiscent of Iran today, the newly formed Soviet Union waited in the wings to take advantage of any power vacuums that would result.

Additionally, the perception that the Middle East has been America’s private oil reserve parallels—however loosely and inaccurately—the colonialism of the post-1918 period. By extension, the ever looming specter of political Islam may be seen as a distorted version of self-determination, as the faith remains the center of the lives of much of the protestors, even as it remains a question as to whether the faith itself has propelled any of the current revolts.

The world—and especially the United States—has convincingly demonstrated that it was not ready for this. And while the endgame probably won’t mimic 1989 or 1918 [and, hopefully, not 1979], it remains to be seen what truisms are shattered and what new ones arise to take their place.

Arizona

As inappropriately ironic or ironically inappropriate as it may be to say so, the left has shot itself in the foot once again.

They may have had a legitimate—however flimsy—argument about the use of target imagery in politics as perilous if they restricted their argument to issues relating to gun control and gun culture; after all, it was a very loose purchase policy that allowed the murderer in Arizona to acquire his weapon and ammunition with relative ease.

Instead, the left decided to go after the entirety of the debating style of the right to score political points, mostly because they find it hard to shout back effectively.

Interestingly, Fox News chief Roger Ailes has called for a calmer tone from his side and has challenged the left to do the same, pointing out that both sides of the debate use target imagery as ubiquitous political metaphor.

In any case, indications from outlets such as the NY Times and MSNBC are such that they don’t seem to want to let up in this debate irrespective of the what the wishes of Rep. Giffords might be once she wakes up.