Nuts with Nukes

     If I were president of South Korea I would have a bomb by now; same thing if I were Japanese, Philippine, Taiwanese, or Australian. I have seen nothing to indicate any of those countries are pursuing nuclear weapons programs but with China continuing to build its military capabilities in the face of no apparent threat it would seem only prudent to be prepared. I would have expected North Korea’s nuclear ambitions to ignite a chain reaction in the region years ago. None of those countries have anything to fear from rational, stable neighbors but no one can be sure how stable China will be as its demographic time bomb ticks and North Korea may be neither rational nor stable. I would have a bomb in my pocket just to be safe.
     It’s the Chinese I really don’t understand. They would seem to have more to lose than anybody else from a Pacific rim bristling with nukes and they could have stopped it. Instead they let North Korea be an American problem. It is doubtful the US could have prevented them from developing a bomb short of forcible intervention and we have not been prepared to use force there. If we ever were the war in Iraq makes it out of the question for the foreseeable future. North Korea has figured that out. So has Iran. The question is whether one of them or some other rogue regime will be the first to follow Saddam Hussein’s lead and miscalculate. It’s hard to see how it won’t happen. There would appear to be a high likelihood that sooner or later a bomb will go off in a major American city. When it does there will be hell to pay. It will make September 11 look like a snooze alarm. It may take that. Only the US has the wherewithal to really do something about the proliferation and to date we have lacked the will, Iraq not withstanding.
     The keys to preventing catastrophe may be in Afghanistan and Iraq. If they can transform themselves into stable and prosperous nations over the next few years it could take a lot of wind out of the sails of Arab/Islamic radicals around the world. They are the one group likely to be insane enough to actually use a bomb. Unfortunately, four and a half years after September 11, the hate mongers are still out there as numerous as ever spewing their murderous venom. It may be that not even pacifying Iraq and Afghanistan will change much. After all, look at the Palestinians. Eight decades of futility haven’t deterred them from immersing themselves in never ending misery. But we have got to be successful in both places. Any hint of failure will produce a flood of jihadists and turn a second major attack from likelihood to certainty. With nukes increasingly available the next time could be a lot worse than the last.
     We might as well get used to the idea of more nukes floating around the world. Diplomatic efforts to stop it will be futile. Taking Iran to the UN Security Council only gives them more time. That fractious body isn’t going to take action. There is no international institution that can. The Russians don’t feel threatened and apparently neither do the Chinese. French cynics think the Americans will always come to the rescue if any thing really bad happens. Most of the world is more concerned about American unilateralism than nuclear threats. The level of international cooperation required to get serious about proliferation just isn’t there. That’s going to take another disaster.

Autism and Floortime

     One of the myths of autism is that it is incurable. So called experts have for many years insisted there is no hope for these children. The best they might ever do is habituate to their condition. Even today I regularly see reports from prominent scientists describing it as genetic. It begins in the womb and is a lifelong disorder. The myth is slowly being debunked. There are a still small but growing number of physicians and psychologists who report genuine improvement in children with autism and in some cases even cures. Not all of them are wishful thinking parents who have children with autism themselves.
     Most clinicians refer to what is commonly called autism as Autism Spectrum Disorders or ASD. There is severe withdrawal and inability to communicate at one end and high functioning autism or Asperger’s Syndrome at the other. Dr. Stanley I. Greenspan makes the extraordinary claim that he has treated thousands of children and adults with ASD and has never seen one that could not be moved forward on the spectrum, not even one. In many cases they have been be able to join their peers in full healthy emotional and intellectual lives.
     Dr. Greenspan is no quack. He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School. He and a colleague, Dr. Serena Wieder, Ph.D., have spent the last twenty five years developing an approach they call Floortime. Their thesis is that all learning begins with emotion. The tiniest infant typically bonds and begins to communicate with its mother because it finds that communication pleasurable and desirable. Each little step in the process represents a foundational building block required for the next step. Children with autism have missed some of those building blocks. The idea behind Floortime is to meet the child wherever she is emotionally. Find what the child likes to do. Join her in the activity. Follow her lead and establish an emotional bond that can be used to communicate in a way the child finds pleasurable. That in turn can allow her to put some of the missing foundation in place. Over time the child moves up on the spectrum.
     I find Dr. Greenspan’s success stories inspirational. Weston Roberts has made remarkable progress in the two years since he was diagnosed with autism. He plays with his peers, makes strong eye contact, and laughs with his dad. But for the past six months or so he seems to be stuck on a language plateau. He hasn’t regressed, but beyond asking for what he wants he is distressingly quiet, rarely engaging in conversation though he loves to sing. And his stimming has gotten worse. Don’t bother to look it up. You won’t find it in Webster’s, not even in the unabridged edition. It’s what Greenspan calls self-stimulation and Weston’s mother calls sensory overload. Weston dances on his toes in what Mom and Dad call his happy dance. He also paces incessantly back and forth in a little trot. He is excessively excited and that appears to be interfering with his therapy. If I understand Greenspan, he would see it as an opportunity. Weston does that because it makes him feel good. So dance with him, sing with him and if he wants to trot, trot. Let him share his pleasure with you. Turn it into a game. It could be a non-verbal game that would help him develop an appreciation for non-verbal cues such as tone of voice, body language, even flirting. It just might add a foundation building block. That would be a wonderful thing.

Seventh Century Justice

     With all the furor over the Afghan apostate who was threatened with execution last week I’m surprised we haven’t seen more serious discussion of the very real and difficult issues Muslims face with Islamic law. These folks are attempting to take their place in the modern era with ideas about humanity stuck in the middle ages. Not only were a lot of fellow Afghans calling for the poor Christian’s head, there were very few prominent Muslims around the world willing to protest. The Council on American-Islamic Relations did, but only in muted tones. I suspect precious few Muslims see it as the barbaric relic of medieval times that most Westerners see. We view it as a straight forward issue of religious freedom. Muslims see it as treason and they are on very solid religious ground. There is no direct call in the Koran for executing Muslims who turn from the faith but there is at least one passage that is often interpreted to mean that and the hadith is full of it. The hadith is the written record of the sayings and practices of Muhammad and his companions and together with the Koran is a principle source of authority. The first four Caliphs were particularly unforgiving of backsliders.
     All Islamic scholarship is grounded in the Koran and the hadith and neither has changed in more than thirteen hundred years. Together they represent all revealed truth. As best I understand it Muslims believe that everything worth knowing is contained in those two bodies of documentation. Beginning about a thousand years ago the Imams took control of schools in the Muslim world and since then have taught nothing else. Talk about a problem!  Imagine if our law were based on the mores of the Spanish Inquisition. We would be asking Torquemada for advice on how best to deal with separation of church and state. Picture our university system focused exclusively on the gospels and Acts of the Apostles. Everything else is either irrelevant or blasphemy. That sounds absurd but it is precisely the problem Muslims face in trying to move beyond attitudes extant when Muhammad was alive. And it isn’t just a few Muslims. Two years ago I attended an open house at our local Mosque and a very well spoken Muslim teenager explained to me that all answers were in the Koran. He was serious and he didn’t mean just moral issues and man’s relationship with God. He meant all answers. I think the boy was representative of mainstream Islam.
     I was hoping the current flap would cause at least a few Muslims to think seriously about what to western eyes is an obvious double standard. If it has they are keeping quiet about it. I think the key for Muslims is education, especially among women. Men may see chastity but when women think about it they will see misogyny. Education doesn’t always make people think but sometimes it does and it is those who actually do think that move us forward. It’s happening with Muslims, if only slowly. Most Muslim countries no longer enforce the more archaic practices of Islamic law. Slavery is nowhere still legal though it is specifically allowed in the Koran. It isn’t because it is morally wrong. It is banned as a concession to modern secular pressure much as polygamy is officially banned in Utah but it is banned. It is still common for Muslim police to turn a blind eye to family “honor” killings. Only a few Muslims have begun to see something wrong with that. This is going to take time.

Autism and the Immune System

     Vaccines are the third rail of American medicine, touch them and you become a pariah. But the issues just won’t go away. Usually the focus is on the mercury based preservative thimerosal which was supposedly banned in childhood inoculations beginning in 1999. In fact it is still widely used in flu shots given to pregnant women and infants. Analysts have calculated that adjusted for timing and body weight, fetuses and infants are being exposed to about as much thimerosal as ever. The CDC refuses to ban it in flu shots, insisting it is safe and arguing that manufacturers don’t produce enough of the mercury free version to go around. Most OB-Gyns and pediatricians take the CDC at its word and routinely prescribe the cheaper and easier to handle version containing thimerosal. The preservative is required in multiple dose vials to prevent fungal or bacterial contamination. It is not needed with individual doses. The CDC takes the not entirely unreasonable position that the known risk of an influenza epidemic trumps the unproved risk of autism. (Don’t try this argument on the average parent of a child with autism.) They acknowledge the need for more research but actively obstruct any meaningful inquiry that might cast doubt on the safety of the vaccination programs.
     There is an emerging consensus that autism affects a genetically susceptible subgroup in the population and that it may have multiple environmental causes. There is a small but growing body of evidence that the vaccines themselves may be a part of the problem. They have been suspect for years because so many children with autism, my grandson being one of them, also have auto-immune issues. They have that in common with people who have allergies. A few people have begun to ask why it is that among those who have never been vaccinated, like the Amish and groups that practice alternative medicine, autism seems to be unheard of. They don’t have allergies either. Authorities respond that the Amish aren’t representative and alternative medicine folks don’t keep reliable medical records.
     Now a new pair of studies is out to throw fuel on the fire, one from UC Davis linking thimerosal to immune system damage in mice even with very low levels of exposure, another from Europe associating early use of antibiotics, fever reducers, and the MMR vaccine with increased risk of allergic symptoms.     The UC Davis study involved placing dendritic cells from mice into Petri dishes and exposing them to varying levels of thimerosal. Dendritic cells are signalers that are responsible for summoning white blood cells when an invasion is detected. Damaged cells send faulty signals. Whether similar damage occurs to cells exposed inside the body is another question as is whether human cells would be affected in the same way. But thimerosal exposure has been shown before to produce autistic like symptoms in laboratory mice.
     No one really knows what the connection between autism and allergies is other than they both involve dysfunctional immune systems. None of this proves that either can be caused by thimerosal or vaccines but it does suggest immune systems are fragile things and the excessive use of medication in early childhood can have unintended consequences. It also suggests the decision to dramatically increase the number of inoculations on the childhood schedule, and to inject pregnant women and infants with a known toxin, may have unforeseen side effects. CDC reluctance to investigate looks less and less defensible. They appear to be taking unnecessary risks when safer alternatives are readily available. The medical community has some serious questions to address here.

The New Iron Curtain

     Congressional attempts to wall off the Mexican border may be the worst idea since Smoot Hawley. No good can come of it. Its advocates advance it as a security measure and I suppose some people see it in that light but it is really part of a broader popular feeling that the world is encroaching on us and we don’t like it. We don’t like immigrants, we don’t like sending call center jobs to India, and we don’t want Arab companies operating American ports. This whole thing about globalization makes us uncomfortable. We need to get over it. We live on a shrinking planet whether we like it or not. If we manage it right it will produce enormous opportunities for our grand children. Getting it wrong could have catastrophic results.
     A little history is in order. European agricultural production all but ground to a halt during WWI and American farmers rushed into the breach. It can be fairly argued that German attempts to stop shipments to England and France prompted US entry into the war. It wasn’t about the oil. It was about the wheat. European reentry into the commodity markets in the 1920s produced a world wide glut. Smoot Hawley raised tariffs to protect domestic producers, other countries retaliated, and the world sank into The Great Depression. After the next war we reversed course and began a long series of tariff reductions and trade agreements. There were hiccups here and there but the trend was steadily down and the world experienced an explosion of prosperity never before seen. The last thing we should want to do is screw that up.
     My brother sent me a column from a pundit arguing that “Historically, international trade has not been a major source of structural adjustment for American workers.” I’m surprised the guy can spell “historically.” This country was built on trade. Not only was the Depression a product of the Smoot Hawley Act and resulting retaliation; Columbus sailed looking for better access to spices, early Virginia prospered on tobacco sales to Europe, the market for beaver pelts drove westward expansion prior to the French and Indian War, and even the Civil War was as much about protectionist tariffs for Northern industry and the impact on Southern cotton, tobacco, and sugar exports as it was about slavery. Constitutional prohibitions on internal interference with interstate commerce are the most important factors in the emergence of American economic preeminence during the 20th century. Technological innovation has certainly been the story of the industrial revolution but to minimize the impact of trade is outrageous.
     I’m sure I don’t have to remind anyone we are a nation of immigrants too. Our ability to assimilate our newcomers is one of the factors that set us apart from other nations. The degree to which we failed to assimilate blacks and Hispanics is one of the tragedies of the last century. We can and should take reasonable measures to control a flood of immigration but we shouldn’t be trying to stop it altogether. We should be focused on how to help them become productive citizens once they get here. Some of these people come with a work ethic that is nothing short of amazing and that is to the benefit of all. Every year we see stories of Asian high school valedictorians who have maxed the SAT. That is a good thing. We should be holding them up as models for others. We shouldn’t be trying to hold back the tide of globalization either. We should be taking advantage of it, not building walls.

The Civil War that Wasn’t

     As the western press continues its never ending campaign to portray the war in Iraq as a disaster I’ve been thinking back to the fall of 2002 when it first became clear the US intended to invade. It should have been no surprise to anyone. It was only a few weeks after September 11 when I first heard a comment from a prominent pundit that it was hard to see how Saddam Hussein could survive. She was right. In the weeks of shock that followed George Bush and a lot of other Americans concluded that the status quo in the Middle East could not be allowed to continue. The Arab world had to be reformed and Saddam was one of the most intransigent obstacles. He represented a festering boil that had to be lanced. I had serious misgivings at the time. We’re talking about a billion or so people with major attitude problems but in the event I supported the decision and I still think it was the right thing to do. The danger now lies not with factional fighting in Iraq but where it always lay, with those Americans who change their minds when the going gets tough.
     An astonishing Arab capacity for self destruction not withstanding, no sane Iraqi Sunni Arab wants a civil war they could not possibly hope to win. They represent only 20% of the population and no longer control the levers of power. If Sunni fanatics were to succeed in provoking a major response from Shiites it would not be civil war. It would be massacre. Every day the army gets stronger and they have now progressed from limited small unit operations to the ability to control significant territory and conduct major military exercises. I use the word “exercises” because there is no real organized enemy left to fight. If I can believe what I read the police forces are infiltrated with militias but given the quality of journalism coming from there you have to take that with a grain of salt too. Frankly I rely more on what the returning troops have to say and they paint a very different picture. When I see scenes of bombings I pay less attention to what the commentators are saying than to the background. There I see cars driving by and people going about their business. What I don’t see is the commentator. They all stay in their hotel rooms and depend on Iraqi stringers for the actual coverage.
     Kurds in the north would like to see an independent Kurdistan but they aren’t about to go to war to get it. They are seeing prosperity for the first time in living memory and have no desire to go back to the bad old days. Shiites don’t want war either. Why on earth would they? They are enjoying majority rule for the first time ever, having been dominated by Sunni Caliphs, Sultans, Kings and dictators since the days of Ali. For them to make war would be to risk a fragmented Iraq. They certainly don’t want that.
     No, despite the apparent desire of many in the west to see or even produce chaos in Iraq it isn’t going to happen. It’s still unlikely a durable democracy will emerge there anytime soon. That was always a long shot. Strongmen like Saddam are almost always replaced by new despots. But security and stability are the most important concerns for now, then economic growth. Given those preconditions democracy may well follow. Without them democracy will surely fail. Either way there will be no civil war.

Chosen

     For the second Sunday of Lent readings at Mass included the story of God’s demand that Abraham offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. The homilist presented it as a mystery, impossible to understand. I’m glad somebody else has trouble with that passage. I went back and read Abraham’s whole story again for the umpteenth time and I have to say I don’t understand any of it. Abraham is usually portrayed as a paragon of faith and obedience but that isn’t how I see him at all. I see him as a man of profoundly weak character who was blessed far beyond anything he deserved. He had that in common with Peter. God seems to have a distinct preference for shaky characters.
     I’ll start with Abraham’s offering up Isaac. He wasn’t the first son he had been willing to sacrifice. That would have been Ishmael, the eldest. If you recall Sarai (Sarah) had decided she would never have children and insisted Abram take the Egyptian slave Hagar as his concubine. That apparently was not an unusual practice in those days. Sarah wasn’t the only woman in Genesis to sanction such an arrangement.  But when Isaac was born Sarah became jealous of Hagar’s son and insisted that they both be banished. Abraham meekly complied, sending them into the desert with only some bread and a skin of water. The text is confused on the details, Ishmael was apparently a fourteen year old infant, but God intervened, led Hagar to a well, and promised her that Ishmael would found a great nation (today’s Arabs believe they are that nation, Hagar’s well is the oasis at Mecca.) God had already made the same assurance to Abraham. I suppose we could conclude that he showed a remarkable degree of trust but the whole episode is just one more mystery to me.
     There are others. Sarai was a beautiful septuagenarian when Abram took her to Egypt and had her pretend to be his sister for fear that someone would kill him to get her. Sure enough Pharaoh heard about her, took her into his household and rewarded Abram with livestock and slaves. When Pharaoh discovered she was already married he expelled them from Egypt but Abram got to keep his property. They repeated the deceit again years later with another king. Sarai must have been one gorgeous old woman. I can’t fault Abram for doing what he had to do to survive but today we would call someone like him a pimp.
     It’s a short story really, taking up only a brief section of Genesis, but what a plot! Faith and obedience seem to be Abram’s only virtues but that is enough for God to make him a man of great wealth and to promise him over and over again that his descendents will be too numerous to count.  Maybe the message is that if God can do that for someone as flawed as Abram there must be hope for the rest of us.
     As an adolescent I gave up trying to read Genesis literally but I still read it regularly, probably more often than any other scripture. There is a theme there that despite its inconsistencies seems to be trying to say something about us and our relationship with God that I would really like to understand better than I do. At one level the stories are simple and straight forward but the more I think about them the more confused I become. What can this message really be? In the end I suspect my homilist was right. It’s a mystery, impossible to explain.

The Rights of Nations

     At the end of WWI Woodrow Wilson took a triumphant tour of Europe. He and his fourteen points were so wildly popular Catholics were praying that the Pope not die while he was there. They were afraid Protestant Wilson might be elected to succeed him. Wilson’s League of Nations failed even more miserably than the United Nations but the trip was a huge boost for liberal democracy. By the time the Berlin Wall fell it was almost universally accepted as the sole legitimate form of government. Even despots hold sham elections.
     So man is to be ruled by these principles. The powers of government are to be strictly limited and will require the consent of the governed. We will all be equal under the law.  Our rights will be protected. Neither the government nor our neighbor can unreasonably interfere with our liberty, our property, or our general well being. When they do we can seek redress in fair and open courts. Or can we? What if the offending neighbor is Chinese? What redress do we have then?
     It’s not an idle question. It was only 2003 when China suppressed news of a SARS epidemic and endangered the health of the world. Some authorities in Oregon believe mercury mines in China may be responsible for a spike in autism in that state. Now we’re worried about an avian flu pandemic worse than anything seen in living memory, the sort of devastating sickness that in the past has brought down civilizations. Avoiding it may require an unprecedented level of international cooperation. Will we get it? Is there anyone who has the power to ensure the necessary precautions? In a word, no. Neither the WHO nor anybody else has that kind of enforcement mandate.
     Let’s take a less cataclysmic case. If the Governor of Nevada were targeting his citizens with death squads we wouldn’t hesitate to send federal marshals to Reno and put a stop to it, troops if necessary. We fought the bloodiest war in our history to settle that issue. But the world stood idly by for many years while Saddam Hussein brutalized Iraqis Much of the world roundly objected when the US invaded, and still objects as the gruesome evidence continues to emerge. Are the sovereign rights of states  to trump the rights of man? To say it is a matter for the UN is to say yes. If it were left to that flawed body Saddam would not only still be in power, he’d still be in Kuwait. Witness the continuing genocide in Sudan.
     I’m not saying raw US military force is the answer to all ills. Pax Americana has a frightening ring to it. So what is to be done? Only in the economic sphere have nations been willing to cede significant sovereignty for mutual benefit. But economic issues are powerful motivators. The benefits of capitalism have forced even the United States to change it’s tax laws under threat of trade sanctions. China was required to honor enforceable contracts before joining the WTO.  Turkey is cleaning up some of its worst human rights abuses in hopes of joining the European Union. Even Libya’s Muamar Ghadaffi dismantled his nuclear arms program in exchange for sanctions relief.
     We’re well into our third century learning how to make liberal democracy work inside the state. We have not made nearly so much progress on just how the states themselves are to get along. I think we’ll get there but Hegel was wrong. History isn’t over, not yet. We’ve still got another set of governing principles to work out.

Update on Thimerosal and Autism

     My grandson’s pediatrician thinks his autism was caused by mercury poisoning, probably from the thimerosal preservative widely used in vaccines he received in infancy. To say the idea is controversial is a gross understatement. Defenders of the childhood vaccination program are horrified that parents might stop having their babies inoculated and for good reason. A critical element in the program’s success is something called herd immunity. If enough children are immune to a disease, the remaining group may not be sufficient to sustain it. That’s how epidemics are avoided. But of course we have an epidemic, in autism spectrum disorders.
     Thimerosal is mercury based, mercury is one of the most toxic substances on earth, autistic symptoms are remarkably similar to those of mercury poisoning, and in 1999 authorities belatedly realized that a dramatic increase in the number of vaccines administered to small children had also increased mercury exposure to unacceptable levels. At the same time we were seeing an equally dramatic increase in the number of children with autism. That was enough to order that thimerosal no longer be used in most vaccines beginning in 2001. Most of the existing stocks should have expired by early 2003. Folks like me who follow this have been waiting with some interest for news on whether there has been a corresponding decline in reported cases of autism. There is a bit of a delay because autism can’t really be diagnosed before age 18 months. The median is three years but there has been enough time for results to start coming in.
     They are. Dr. Mark R. Geier and David A. Geier analyzed the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System data base maintained by the CDC and the California Department of Educational Services data base. The father and son research team did indeed find evidence of the hoped for decline. They report “Significant increasing trends in newly diagnosed NDs <Neurological Disorders> were observed in both data bases 1994 through mid-2002. Significant decreasing trends in newly diagnosed NDs were observed in both data bases from mid-2002 to 2005. The results indicate that the trends in newly diagnosed NDs correspond directly with expansion and subsequent contraction of cumulative mercury to which children were exposed from TCVs <Thimerosal Containing Vaccines>…” They go on to cite a report from the US Department of Education on a recent decline after years of increases in the number of reported new autism diagnoses among children age 3-5. Their research is published in the peer reviewed Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Critics say the data aren’t reliable The Geiers say it’s the best available.
     The Geiers are well known in Autism circles as early critics of another controversial study, one sponsored by the CDC and known as Verstaeten et al. Verstaeten first concluded there was a significant relationship between thimerosal and autism, then looked at different data and found none. The Geiers attempted to gain access to the data for their own analysis and were essentially blocked on privacy grounds. The CDC says on their web site there is a need for further research but so far as I can tell there has not been another US epidemiological study. In 2004 a panel from the Institute of Medicine concluded that the available evidence suggests no causal link between thimerosal and autism and recommended all further research into the subject be stopped. As a result most current projects are private. I hope the Geier analysis holds up. Something is causing all this autism. If mercury can be shown to be a major contributor we can deal with it.

Liberté Egalité Fraternité

     At Jenna in 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte defeated a Prussian army in a crucial victory that would enshrine the emperor in history. For German philosopher Georg Hegel, who lost his job when French troops closed the local university, it was the end of history. It wasn’t Napoleon’s martial success that impressed Hegel. It was the idea behind it. Hegel is credited with the notion that from the beginning man has been on a predestined journey. The end would come when he found the set of governing principles that resolved all contradictions. There would no longer be master and slave. All men would be free to pursue their deepest human needs. Hegel thought the French revolution, imperfect as it was, represented the final step. Its ideals could not be improved. What remained was a matter of implementation.
     In the summer of 1989, shortly before the Berlin Wall fell, Francis Fukuyama argued in Foreign Affairs magazine that Hegel was right. What had become known as liberal democracy had triumphed; liberal because the rights of all are protected as a matter of law, democracy because government rules with the consent of the governed and triumphant because there was no longer a competing global ideology. Absolute monarchy was dead. So were fascism and communism. Liberal democracy was the sole ideology left standing with worldwide appeal. The world still had its despots but nobody seriously thought theirs was the better way. History was indeed over.
     Well not quite. Four years later Samuel Huntington observed that the post cold war world had settled out not on the lines of ideology but on those of civilization, defined primarily by religion. Huntington divided the globe along fault lines with Catholic Western Europe and America opposing the Orthodox East (Protestant and Catholic share the same civilization. Those wars are over.) Then there is Japanese Shinto, East Asian Buddhist, Indian Hindu, the world of Islam and a smattering of others. Huntington contended in Clash of Civilizations that conflict among the cultures would define world order for the foreseeable future.
     It would appear Huntington overstated the case. It was certainly true that the breakups of Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union produced some serious strife but that is by and large behind us. None of it produced any major international wars. The only really significant inter-civilization conflict to have emerged is that between Islam and the rest of the world. I will maintain that it too will prove to be relatively minor, eventually reduced to a few footnotes in the history books. Islam has broad popular appeal but the desire of radicals to reestablish the caliphate with themselves at its head does not. The caliphs had fourteen hundred years of history to demonstrate that theirs was not a sound governing mechanism that would satisfy the masses. Radical claims that they will get it right this time ring hollow.
     I don’t agree that liberal democracy represents the end of history. It is a conceit to think no one will ever have a better idea. But I do agree that for now liberal democracy has triumphed. At the moment no one does have a better idea. Aside from a few crackpots and elderly leftist professors nobody believes in communism anymore. We still have critics of capital vs. labor, the gap between rich and poor. There are those who think government should be larger or smaller, and those who believe we are destroying the planet. But the fundamental revolutionary ideals of freedom and equality under the law have proven to be an enduring and universal bond. Hegel was right about that much.

Identify Yourself

     I got a new voter registration card in the mail the other day and am reminded of the controversy over proposals to require photo IDs at the polls. Contrarians argue that some voters, minorities in particular, might be intimidated. That just seems to me an obvious red herring. I can think of all sorts of reasons why we should ensure that all eligible voters have ready access to the ballot but we should also have reasonable assurance that they are who they say they are, that they are indeed eligible, and that they only vote once per election. I can think of just one reason why any voter would not want to be positively identified. They intend to cast a fraudulent vote.
     I am required to carry a photo ID whenever I drive and to show it to a policeman if asked. I have to show one to get on an airplane or cross an international border. I am often asked for one when I use a credit card. Young people have to have them to purchase liquor or tobacco. Employers routinely require them for access to the workplace. Even blind people commonly obtain specially marked drivers licenses for ID purposes. A government issued photo ID is a basic need in modern life for just about everyone except children. Even infants have their footprints taken at birth just in case there is an identity question.
     Nor do I understand why people block caller ID on their telephones, though I have friends and relatives who do this. It would seem to be no more than common courtesy to let people know who you are. If you don’t want them to know you probably shouldn’t be calling. I remember an incident that occurred several years ago before most people had heard of caller ID. Two Dallas City Council members were involved in a dispute and one of them began getting harassing calls late at night. She went to the police who looked at computerized records at the phone company and determined that the calls originated from the home of her council antagonist. The resulting public embarrassment put an end to the calls. If that’s a violation of privacy I’m all for it.
     Now I see where some people are using fake caller IDs. Apparently it’s easy to do when making calls over the internet. It’s called caller ID spoofing but that’s too innocuous a term. Last fall several hundred constituents of Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., got recorded messages bad mouthing the congressman. Recipients were especially upset because they appeared to be coming from the congressman’s office. That’s hardly a harmless prank. There are companies advertising the service for a fee, for “entertainment” purposes. I understand there is no law against it but there should be. When I have a friend call and disguise his voice that’s one thing but faking a caller ID ranks right up there with the mass mailer who makes his junk look like official correspondence. It has the potential for serious abuse.
     I can understand why people keep their numbers unlisted. I don’t know of anyone who lists their cell phone. But when I’m doing the calling I’m more than happy to let people on the other end know who I am. Medical records should be kept private although sometimes this goes too far, financial records certainly, voting history of course, but identity? Come on. Maybe it’s just me but I have never felt a need to conceal my identity from anyone who had a legitimate need for it. Frankly I wonder about people who do.

Autism’s Quiet Heroes

     Weston Roberts is four years old and goes to pre-school three days each week, at a church just down the street from his home. One of his therapists, Andrea, goes with him, partly to see how he reacts, partly to help him with activities, mostly just in case. Andrea is a graduate student who has been working with our grandson for two years. Last summer she changed her masters program halfway through because otherwise she would not have been able to continue with him. Ashley, his lead therapist, has gone through extra training specifically for him. We are most appreciative. Weston enjoys the class, is excited about going, participates, doesn’t talk much, but obviously understands what is happening and follows instructions well. He needs the social interaction and his teachers are careful to include him in everything. They think he may be ready to attend by himself. His parents are a bit nervous about that just yet but Andrea is getting married next month and they will be without her for two weeks. Mom plans to go in her stead and maybe hide in the hallway to see what happens.
     Now Weston is going to Sunday school as well. His parents have gone back to church after a lengthy hiatus. Jenna can’t say enough about how kind the people there have been. They don’t go together exactly. Chris attends an adult class and the primary worship service. Jenna stays with Weston. She keeps us laughing non-stop with stories about the class, an elderly couple trying to teach something about God to a dozen precocious four year olds. Weston handles the din okay. It isn’t that different from his regular school. He gets itchy during the sit down period for lessons but so do the other children. After six weeks Jenna is about ready to trust him to the care of a mature teenager who will take him on as a ministry. Jenna would really like to join Chris and the adults but someone has to be prepared to deal with Weston if he becomes agitated. The Sunday school director tells Jenna he isn’t the first child with autism they have encountered. They have seen several and they have always managed to work them into their classes. She thinks Weston will be fine. Jenna worries that the director has only seen Weston’s angelic side. A responsible teenager should be able to calm him though, take him out into the hallway or into the director’s office if anything should happen. Weston can’t always have a professional therapist with him.
     Weston’s grandmother tries to conduct a “gram camp” in the summer with as many of her grandchildren as can manage to be here. This year she plans to have two five year olds for the first time. We are hoping that Weston will come too. If he does his mother will come with him. We can handle him one-on-one but not with a large group of other children. One thing we know we can count on though, his cousins will accept him without question and work extra hard to make him feel included. That’s another thing we are thankful for.
     Weston’s parents, not to mention his grand parents, dream that he will someday, someday soon, be able to attend normal schools and be indistinguishable from his peers. He will play sports, go to college, have a career, make intimate friends, experience romance, even marry and have children of his own. We think he has a reasonable shot at it, not least because he will have a great deal of help.

  

We Paint Arabs with a Broad Brush

     American Muslims have been working to clean up their image since 9-11. They may well have thought they were making some progress when most of the mainstream media refused to print cartoons of Muhammad that Muslims found offensive. The explosion of outrage over the proposed United Arab Emirates takeover of some US port operations should disabuse them of any such notion. In American minds the stereotypical Arab has been and remains a swarthy misogynist brandishing rocket propelled grenades and spouting mindless anti-American diatribe. The rioting and calls for blood over the cartoons didn’t help. Frankly I don’t see how Muslims are ever going to dispel that image until they persuade their co-religionists to stop so much barbaric behavior. Every time a prominent Imam stands in front of an American audience insisting that his is a religion of peace he does so against a backdrop of exploding bombs and videotaped beheadings. Seldom do we see crowds of Muslims protesting any of that, just the occasional apologist trying to explain that we shouldn’t believe what we see.
     This week’s op-ed pages are filled with pundits protesting the ports deal and claiming their xenophobia isn’t xenophobia but that’s what it is. These people are Arabs for crying out loud! Let them into US port operations? Not in a million years! They may be allies and the Navy may trust them to replenish aircraft carriers but that doesn’t mean we should trust them anywhere near anything as sensitive as an American port. Too many Arabs have murdered too many innocents over too many years for that. They’ve burned too many American flags, called us too many vile names, taught their children too much hatred, made too many threats, and crashed too many airplanes into American buildings. To expect us to ignore all that and assume the bad guys are a tiny minority is asking too much. It’s xenophobia but there it is and there are good reasons for it. What do they expect?
     The Bush administration has taken to calling the War on Terror the Long War. It may be a better choice than some of us realize. Professor Samuel Huntington called it a clash of civilizations. I have reluctantly concluded he was right.  There has been a huge amount of damage done and it is going to take generations to undo it. Arabs are going to have to reform their entire society beginning with their schools. Some of the changes they will have to make are civilizational in nature. For nearly fifteen hundred years now they have been telling themselves that not only is theirs the superior culture, Jews and Christians are obligated to be subservient. When we don’t play the part they are outraged (they would say offended.) What we are seeing is the intemperate reaction of a very large number of Muslims. Our reaction in turn is to take a very jaded view of a culture we wouldn’t otherwise have thought much about. They are further offended and a lot of Arabs have turned to violence. The whole thing has escalated until it is very nearly out of control.
     The past few weeks have served to remind me just how deep the divides are. Demagogues have been out in force on all sides. Americans haven’t been rioting in the street but this ports affair has touched a nerve. With congressmen from both parties standing in line to weigh in with full bombast I’m expecting some poorly advised legislation. We aren’t going to look back on this as a bright spot in the Long War.