Jan 2, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
According to a December 31, 2002 editorial on Catholic Schools published in the New York Sun,
In 1962, New York educated a student population of about one million with about 40,000 teachers. Today, the city educates about 100,000 more students, but the number of teachers has doubled to about 80,000. Has the quality of education improved by a factor of two...?
The cost to educate the students in New York's Catholic schools averages $3,200 a pupil for Kindergarten through eighth grade and $5,800 a pupil for high schoolers.... The public schools spend nearly double that, about $10,000 each in elementary and middle schools and more than $9,000 for each high-school student.
Jan 1, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Yaron Brook, Ph.D., President and Executive Director of The Ayn Rand Institute, wrote the following letter distributed to the press by his organization, in response to the comments made in an interview by Israel Government Press Office Director Danny Seaman:Are Media Networks Aiding and Abetting Terrorism?
Danny Seaman, Israel's Government Press Office Director, accused Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, BBC, ABC and CBS of working with directors and producers appointed by the Palestinian Authority who spin--and even fabricate--reports in favor of Palestinians and against Israel.
"Three senior producers" working for foreign networks, Seaman claimed, "were coordinated with [master terrorist] Marwan Barghouti. He used to call them and inform them about what was about to happen. They always received early warning about gunfire on Gilo. Then they shot for TV only the Israeli response fire on Beit Jala. Those producers advised Barghouti how to get the Palestinian message across better."
This alleged conspiracy between journalists and terrorists to promote the Palestinian cause should be thoroughly investigated. If these charges are true, what we have here is not only an egregious example of non-objective journalism, but a far more condemnable behavior on the part of mainstream networks: an active role in aiding and abetting terrorism.
Seaman's charges should come as no surprise if we recall what BBC's correspondent in Gaza reportedly said at a Hamas rally: "Journalists and media organizations [are] waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people."
It is bad enough to have the media biased against Israel--the innocent victim of terrorism--but it is even worse to have the media, on which we depend for the news, actively collaborating with terrorists.
If we find out that this is indeed the case, we must make sure that all those in the media who are involved with the terrorists be fired, at a minimum. This won't solve the problem of media bias against Israel, but at least it will increase the possibility of an objective reporting on the Middle East situation.
Jan 1, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
According to an article in the December 31, 2002 edition of the Daily Telegraph,South Korea sharply diverged from the Bush administration's policy on North Korea yesterday, saying Washington's policy of economic pressure and isolation would fail. President Kim Dae-jung, whose "sunshine policy" of engagement with Pyongyang has been derided by some White House officials, said direct engagement with the Stalinist state was the only way to relieve tension.
"We cannot go to war with North Korea and we can't go back to the Cold War system and extreme confrontation," he told his cabinet.... In a carefully phrased swipe at America, Mr Kim said: "Pressure and isolation have never been successful with Communist countries--Cuba is one example...."
White House officials have spoken of exerting such pressure on Pyongyang that Kim Jong-il's regime would collapse, an intention that has alarmed China and South Korea, which fear a destabilisation of the region.
If any policy is demonstrably less successful than "pressure and isolation," it is the "dialogue and engagement" that Kim Dae-jung proposes. But, as is now clear, bringing down North Korea is not his goal.Dec 31, 2002 | Dollars & Crosses
Last week the U.S. ratified a U.N. protocol banning child combatants:
Secretary-General Kofi Annan's report to the Security Council this month lists 23 parties--including governments and rebel groups--in Afghanistan, Burundi, Congo, Liberia and Somalia that recruit and use child soldiers. [Associated Press, 12/24/02]
Did Annan's report include the Palestinians? Apparently not, as they are not listed in the article, or the Dec. 16 AP article on Annan's report. With regard to this issue, Fiamma Nirenstein, a correspondent for La Stampa, reports on a November 16 article in Al Quds, the Hezbollah weekly:
After speaking to children in Jenin, the reporter explained that children had been trained from a very young age not only to throw stones, but also to use small explosive devices and grenades--a strategic decision recently supplemented by using children to prepare bombs. The children are divided into three groups: The first helps the grown-ups manufacture explosives, the second plants the devices, and the third--probably the best trained--is charged with carrying out ambushes where they bring along a bag full of explosives, not just stones. [...] A 16-year-old told the reporter how he had thrown at least 50 grenades at soldiers. During the first night of Operation Defensive Shield, as the Israelis called it, hundreds of children walked through the streets chanting, "Fight to the death...!"
[...] And Mr. Arafat? Talking about children in August, he lauded Farid Houra, a 14-year-old shahid, saying, "The shahid constitutes the fundamental and victorious force of our people." And in January, when he was asked what message he'd like to send Palestinian children, he said: "The child who throws a stone, who confronts a tank, doesn't it send a better message to the world when that hero becomes a shahid?" [New York Sun, 12/23/02]
Dec 30, 2002 | Dollars & Crosses
Communist North Korea has removed U.N. monitoring seals and cameras at the country's main nuclear complex, a clear signal that they fully intend to step up their efforts to build (and eventually use) nuclear weapons against people they don't like.The U.N. is outraged and is blasting the North Korean government -- and well they should. However, it's interesting that the U.N. becomes outraged when their power is threatened, while the same understanding is not granted to the United States for its perfectly legitimate efforts to protect itself from chemical attacks from Iraq or, for that matter, nuclear attacks from North Korea.
It seems like the guiding premise of the U.N. is: threaten our power, and you're toast; threaten the United States, while being nice to us, and we're definitely open to discussion.
Hypocrisy seems like too kind a word here. Why do we still belong to such an organization? Exactly how does it benefit our safety? It's time to start asking these questions -- and answering them.
Dec 26, 2002 | Dollars & Crosses
A Reuters report from Jammu, India indicates just what the Islamists want for women:
Suspected militants killed three young women in their homes just days after posters appeared in India's Jammu and Kashmir state ordering women to wear a veil.
Two of the women, both aged 21, were shot dead in their house in Rajouri district in the south of the revolt-torn Muslim-majority state Thursday night. The third woman, 22, was taken away and beheaded, an official said....
The Lashkar Jabbar sprayed acid on two women in Kashir's main city Srinagar last year for defying its Islamic dress code.
The group then had threatened to shoot Muslim women if they failed to wear veils. [Washington Post, 12/20/02]
"Suspected militants"? Res ipsa loquitur.