EclectEcon

Not Just a Bully; a Stupid Bully

It is easy to get the impression that Obama tries to bully the friends of the west while going soft on the enemies of the west. One example: his treatment of Benyamin Netanyahu during Netanyahu's visit to the US. And here is another from Roubini Global Economics reporting on attempts by the Obama administration to persuade China to let its currency appreciate:

[B]y late 2009, China's aggressive policy actions [fiscal and monetary stimuli] had led to a rapid resumption of economic and export growth and rising inflationary pressures that could have been contained in part via currency appreciation. Thus, one would have expected China to start—or at least start signaling—the resumption of slow appreciation of the RMB. Instead, when Barack Obama went to China late last year he was effectively told to take a hike on the currency issue. He was ridiculed by the Chinese for the U.S. fiscal and current account deficits, as well as the accumulation of public and foreign debt.

Does the Obama administration really think that branding China as a currency manipulator is going to have much impact on its policies?

Caption Contest

Over at the curling blog where I co-blog with Alan Adamson, I have posted a photo of the German skip, Andrea Schopp, at the 2010 Women's World Championships. If you have a suggested caption for it, please go there to post it in the comments (and please, keep it sort of clean):

Comments are closed here; please go there to offer your suggestions.

Earth Hour? Not me (and not the major media around here who are pushing it so hard, either)

Earth Hour just seems like so much "feel-good" clap-trap to me. Not that there's all that much wrong with feel-good clap-trap, but it becomes unconscionable when others try to shove it down my throat.

So I'm supposed to turn off my lights and tv and computer during the semi-finals of the 2010 Women's World Curling Championships tonight? Ain't gonna happen.

And I really doubt that any of the local radio or TV stations who have been telling everyone to participate will go off the air.

Curling

Two of the best teams in the world right now are facing each other in the last game of the round robin tonight at the 2010 Women's World Championship: Team Canada vs. Scotland.

Respect and Consideration? Where are the University of Ottawa Admins' Admonitions Now?

I don't like Ann Coulter's humour. Many of her statements seem buffoonish at times. Some of my friends were disappointed that I declined to attend her talk when she visited The University of Western Ontario.

And yet, I thought it reprehensible that the University of Ottawa's Provost would issue a veiled threat to her in the form of a reminder about Canada's "hate speech" legislation before she visited their campus. Shock of shocks, the Canadian Association of University Teachers actually agreed with my position and wrote to the Provost, objecting to his behaviour (see this).

So, now, after some students disrupted her planned speech and closed it down, where are the University of Ottawa admins now? Has the Provost made any pronouncements denouncing their actions, denouncing their lack of "respect and consideration"? Alan Adamson asks a similar question. As Ezra Levant has said,

Houle essentially accused Coulter of planning to commit illegal acts. But when actual illegal plans were hatched -- in public for the world to see -- and then carried out, Houle was silent. So much for his "restraint, respect and consideration."

What a bunch of friggn hypocrites.

Dropping "F-bombs" in the Classroom

Recently, someone asked me for suggestions about how to get higher teaching evaluations. I told them that once, a few years ago, in a snit about something related to the university, I started dropping F-bombs in all my lectures, and my evaluations actually went up.

I guess it's okay to do that. After all, Nixon dropped plenty of F-bombs on the White House tapes, and now Joe Biden has dropped a big one:

Melanie Phillips on Hillary on Palestine

After my earlier posting, "Hillary on Palestine", Joshua posted a link to this column by Melanie Phillips, in which she provides much richer insight. I'm posting an excerpt here, for those who might otherwise have missed the link in the comments:

But in this speech, as Israel Matzav notes, she committed an astounding howler. Referring to the recent Palestinian naming of a square in Ramallah in honour of terrorist Dalal al Mughrabi, she said:

When a Hamas-controlled municipality glorifies violence and renames a square after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis, it insults the families on both sides who have lost loves ones in this conflict.

But Ramallah is not a Hamas-controlled municipality. Hamas controls Gaza. Ramallah is in the West Bank and is controlled by Fatah. The naming of the square was a Fatah event glorifying a Fatah terrorist. Does Clinton not know this? Of course she does. What this whopper tells us is that she – and the benighted Obama administration that wrote her lamentable speech – cannot and will not acknowledge that Fatah is a terrorist organisation that glorifies a terrorist who murdered not only dozens of Israelis but also the niece of an American Democratic senator.

Clinton and the Obamites cannot and will not acknowledge this because their whole Middle East strategy revolves around forcing Israel to give a state to Fatah -- because they ‘deserve’ it as moderate peaceful statesmen-in-waiting. As if. The fact that the Obamites are actually bullying Israel into accepting a Fatah-run terrorist state was unfortunately all-too graphically demonstrated when Fatah named its square after Mughrabi. So Clinton, purporting to attack the glorification of terrorist violence, turned the instigators into Hamas instead.

A Caricature of Undergrads at UWO

From "Overheard at Western" on Facebook [slightly edited]:

Student 1: A guy on my floor comes storming into my room yelling:

Student 2: I'm SO [****(upset) ****]. Instead of buying me the car I want he's only buying me a friggn Lexus.

Student 1: Hold on, you're mad cause your dad is "only" buying you a Lexus?

Student 2: Yeah he's frickin' cheap. That and I'm only getting $200 in spending money this month instead of my usual $500.

The person who posted the exchange swore it was true, but true or not it epitomizes the reputation of UWO students as generally being well-to-do and with very high expectations; some might even say (as some did in the comments) "spoiled".

But the reputation has lasted for decades. One former university president opined that you could tell which cars in the parking lots belonged to students and which ones belonged to faculty members: the students owned the expensive late-model cars.

From one posting at The Urban Dictionary [unedited other than the insertion of paragraph breaks]:

  A university located in London, Ontario, Canada which maintains to have one of the highest entering averages of all schools in Canada and possibly the United States with most programs now requiring at least a 90% average out of high school. Despite its high stress on academics and many awarded professors, it is known to be the party school of Canada, be home to one of David Letterman's top ten places to get knocked up, Saugeen-Maitland hall residence, and hold the most good looking students of all Canadian universities.

With its award winning campus and ivy covered limestone walls it resembles an ivy league university complete with the reputation. Nicknamed the country club, its built on the site of a former golf and country club and retains this name due to its attracting of some of the richest students in Canada and internationally. Lacoste, Abercrombie, Polo, Lululemon, Hollister, Gucci, Ugg, are just some of the identifying signs of a student that attends UWO, also a sense of oblivion as to anything going on outside of the "Western bubble" and its gates is quite prevalent amongst its students.

It could be confused for an American school with its abundance of Fraternities and Sororities. It is home to many sports teams (including a rowing team which beat out all ivy league schools and many other international schools), tennis courts complete with covered domes in the winter, the popular student hangout The Spoke, a restaurant/bar/club The Wave, and even a fine dining restaurant Michaels, the Ivey school of business, and a soon to be built recreation centre that will rival those of many of the biggest athletic schools in the US (even though it will most likely not better the football teams success). UWO - you love it (the parents that believe their children are truly earning the family company they are the heir to) or hate it (every other Canadian university). University of Western Ontario is the most americanized school outside of the USA.

Interestingly, I get the sense that many students are proud of or at least amused by this reputation, even though it is a clear caricature. For another less-charitable entry, see this.

Hillary on Palestine

There might be many reasons to dislike or distrust Hilary Clinton, but I sure like this:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday (March 22) said the world must enact sanctions on Iran that will "bite" and called on the Palestinian leadership to end incitement against Jews and Israel. ...

"Those who preach violence must be proven wrong," said Clinton. "When a Hamas-controlled municipality glorifies violence and renames a square after a terrorist who murdered innocent Israelis, it insults the families on both sides who have lost loved ones over the years," said Clinton, referring to Dalal al-Mughrabi, the Palestinian woman who carried out a suicide attack in 1978 that killed 37 civilians, including one American. The renaming was held in El-Bireh, near Ramallah two weeks ago, during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel.

"And when instigators deliberately mischaracterize the rededication of a synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City and call upon their brethren to defend nearby Muslim holy sites from so-called 'attack,' it is purely and simply an act of incitement," said Clinton, speaking of the Hurva Synagogue ceremony. "These provocations are wrong and must be condemned for needlessly inflaming tensions and impairing prospects for a comprehensive peace."

Does the University of Ottawa really want to take on Ann Coulter on Free Speech Issues?

This should be friggn embarrassing to all academics and Canadians. From Mark Steyn:

Ah, that famous Canadian hospitality. One François Houle, Provost of the University of Ottawa, writes to warn a forthcoming visitor to the campus, Miss Ann Coulter, that Canadians enjoy only the right to government-regulated "free speech" and that therefore she may be liable to criminal prosecution: ...

I would, however, like to inform you, or perhaps remind you, that our domestic laws, both provincial and federal, delineate freedom of expression (or “free speech”) in a manner that is somewhat different than the approach taken in the United States. I therefore encourage you to educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here. You will realize that Canadian law puts reasonable limits on the freedom of expression. For example, promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges. Outside of the criminal realm, Canadian defamation laws also limit freedom of expression and may differ somewhat from those to which you are accustomed. I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind....

I wonder if the provost sends these letters to people from other parts of the ideological spectrum. Even if he does, it is offensive to those of us who value freedom of expression in the ivory tower.

Update: for more, see this.

In Ottawa, the president of the student federation barred a volunteer organizer from putting up posters advertising the upcoming appearance.

"The federation does not support Ann Coulter speaking on our campus," said student president Seamus Wolfe. "We're trying to work with the administration to see if we can ask her to do her speaking event somewhere else."

Swedish Socialism: the failure of elitist planning and intervention

In the 1970s and into the 1980s, many of my friends hailed Sweden as an example of how well socialism can work. And then as the next two decades unfolded, it became clear that the distorted incentives of a very high social safety net, attempts to save failing industries, and tax the snot out of income earners all contributed to Sweden's precipitous decline relative to the economic performances of the other OECD countries (see the data and references in the video below, h/t Cafe Hayek).

An apt simile in the video: "Protecting failing industries is like peeing in your pants. It feels warm and nice at first, but it stays cold for a long time"

Cosmology and an Infinite Universe

After a series of e-mails on this and related topics, Jack wrote:

I can't even get my head around the concept of a universe without borders/end. One would think a deity would at least create borders for the playpen.

Deficits, Debts, and Imbalances

Don Boudreaux says it all so very well at Cafe Hayek:

Talk of imbalances in trade diverts attention from the real problem: Uncle Sam’s gargantuan debt.  That fast-accumulating debt is a huge problem.  It is caused, though, not by trade with China but, rather, by Washington’s lack of fiscal discipline.  Unless you believe that protectionism (and only protectionism) would induce Congress to be more fiscally disciplined, you should avoid all talk of imbalances in trade and instead talk of imbalances in political institutions that encourage politicians to give disproportionate weight to the demands of current voters and to ignore the resulting ill-consequences that will curse future generations.

Sad Statement about Economics and Economics Education

From a student on Facebook:

"i never thought econ classes would be more about matrix algebra and computer science than anything else"

Co-existence in the Middle East

I just learned of this programme for students, which might interest some of you:

http://www.coexistencetrip.net/index.php?cp=homepage

I really doubt that any/either of the sides in the ongoing battles between Israel and its Arab neighbours is going to annihilate the other. At least I hope not. So co-existence is going have to evolve somehow.

String Theory: what does it imply

According to many string theorists, one implication of the theory is that we live in one of many multiverses and there are really 11 dimensions. I doubt if that's a testable hypothesis (See Peter Woit's criticisms of string theory), which made me laugh at this xkcd cartoon (h/t Ricardo):

 

Update: Peter Woit writes, "... it is a real classic, summarizing the situation about as succinctly as possible."

And Somehow People Think MORE Regulation Will Help? Bank Regulators Received Bonuses in Years Leading up to Crisis

Banking Regulators in the US were paid massive bonuses even as they allowed the shadow-banking system, over-leveraging, and un-backed credit-default-swap sales to mushroom, leading to the financial crisis of 2007 - 09. From the CBC [h/t Ms. Eclectic]:

During the 2003-06 boom, the three agencies that supervise most U.S. banks — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — gave out at least $19 million in bonuses, records show.

Nearly all that money was spent recognizing "superior" performance. The largest share, more than $8.4 million, went to financial examiners, those employees and managers who scrutinize internal bank documents and sound the first alarms. Analysts, auditors, economists and criminal investigators also got awards.

... Washington policymakers eased regulations and encouraged banks to write risky loans. Families bought homes they couldn't afford. Brokers found them mortgages. Bankers quickly snatched them up, never asking whether they could be repaid. And rating agencies certified it all as safe.

But regulators were part of the problem, and the bonuses were a symptom, said Ellen Seidman, a research fellow at the New America Foundation think-tank and the head of OTS from 1997 to 2001.

"Is it probably the case that the standards for evaluating how well people in the regulatory system were doing were not as high as they should have been? Probably," Seidman said.

But the bigger question, she said, is why government regulators thought they were doing so well: "Why did the system fool itself?"

The Latest Big Mac Index

The Economist has released its 2010 Big Mac Index. To compute the index, the magazine finds the price of a Big Mac in each country and uses current exchange rates to compare the US dollar price of a Big Mac in each country. Based on this index, Norway, the Euro Zone, and Switzerland have over-valued currencies, Thailand, Malaysia, and China have the most under-valued currencies.

BBC Biases in the Middle East

Something we don't learn much about in the western media is this (in the second paragraph quoted):

So, let’s just accept that Israel’s handling of the Ramat Shlomo settlements announcement during US vice-president Joe Biden’s recent visit was cack handed and self-defeating. Prime Minister Netanyahu has admitted as much by apologising. It was a diplomatic faux pas, and it provoked a torrent of protest from the State Department to the Palestinian Authority. It also received saturation coverage in every major outlet in the western media. ...

Now consider the response [from the rest of the world] to the Palestinian Authority’s decision last week to celebrate the worst terrorist atrocity ever perpetrated inside Israel (the 1978 bus massacres which left 38 dead including 13 children) by naming a central square in Ramallah after its perpetrator, Dalal Mughrabi. That was a statement of values and intent, glorifying mass terrorism and signalling to Israel and the world that the Palestinians can never be trusted to abide by civilised norms. It tells you everything you really need to know about Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and why peace with them has proved elusive for more than six decades. What follows is a list of the western news outlets that have covered what, I repeat, is an immensely significant and illustrative story:

1. The New York Times. 2. Nobody… That’s right, every other major media outlet in the western world has effectively censored it. ...

Why does the BBC not mention it? Why does the CBC not mention it (at least to my knowledge)? Robin Shepherd offers an explanation here. [h/t MA]. I'm not satisfied with his explanation (because he doesn't really offer one other than to emphasize the constant threats to Israel's existence) even though I do accept his conclusion:

By leaving the general population in a state of near total unawareness about the realities that Israel confronts in its dealings with the Palestinians, even neutral and unbiased observers are bound to come away with the impression that Israel is the guilty party in this conflict.

This is real censorship. And it works.

Risk Aversion and the Canadian Coffee Wars

As most Canadians and regular readers of EclectEcon know, we have had some fun promotional battles in Canada between two of the major coffee chains: Tim Hortons and McDonalds.

Tim Hortons is once again running its "Roll Up the Rim to Win" contest (see here for my previous posting about it) from the last week in February through the month of March. And for the first two weeks of March, McDonalds was giving away its coffee for no charge.

These promotions had an interesting effect on me. When the promotions are not being run, I am pretty much indifferent between stopping at one place or the other for a breakfast sandwich and coffee on my commute to work. [They are close substitutes for me; I have a really high cross-price elasticity of demand]

When the Tim Hortons contest began, I started going there more often. The approximate pay-off to buying coffee there is 40 cents per cup, on an expected value basis [1/9 chance of winning and an average prize worth about $3.60 (rough guess on my part concerning the average prize retail value; the odds of winning a prize are Tim Hortons' official statement)].

But when the McDonalds promotion began, that meant a certain pay-off worth about $1.80 to me: my bill there was reduced by $1.80, the price of a large coffee. So I shifted my allegiance to McDonalds during that promotion even though I knew I was giving up the very small chance of winning a Rav4, $10K, a netbook or (with much higher probability) a coffee or bagel. In other words, when the McDonalds promotion began, I was not willing to pay (in an opportunity cost sense) $1.80 for what amounted to a lottery ticket with an expected average payoff of only 40 cents.

And now that the "free" coffee at McDonalds is no longer "free", I've switched back to stopping at Tim Hortons more often. I no longer have to forgo $1.80 worth of coffee to buy what amounts to a Tim Hortons lottery ticket. For me, the Tim Hortons lottery ticket is a gift from them to me.

My being unwilling to pay $1.80 for the small chance of winning a big prize with an expected value of $.40 probably means I'm risk averse (diminishing marginal utility of wealth).

But I wonder what I would do if McDonalds just sold their coffee for 40 cents off.... That would be a far better test of my risk aversion.

Cleaning out the Office: which economics books are the first to go?

I will de facto be on leave for the academic year of 2010-11. In preparation for yielding my extremely desirable pink and lavender office to some lucky colleague, I started clearing out some of the books by putting on a shelf in the hallway with a "help yourself" sign.

It probably says a lot about the profession in general and our programme in particular that Samuelson's Foundations was one of the first books taken and that Friedman's Essays in Positive Economics didn't go for quite some time.

Also, Friedman's and Stigler's Price Theory texts were taken early but Becker's wasn't, nor were either of the editions of Henderson and Quandt.

And the Modern Library edition of Smith's Wealth of Nations was gone early, but Marx was still there after some time.

Short Video on Markets

This is one of the better short videos I have seen that deals with criticisms of the market:

Monetary Policy for the Future

In a recent piece for the C.D.Howe Institute, Pierre Siklos points out that the velocity of money (roughly the number of times each dollar is spent on final goods and services each year) remained somewhat stable for a decade and a half while Canada  also had fairly stable prices and fairly stable interest rates. But things have changed recently:

Superficially, it appears somewhat puzzling that, despite large injections of liquidity, both inflation and expectations of inflation remain firmly anchored within the Bank of Canada’s inflation-target range [of 1-3%]. Since the fourth quarter of 2008, however, the velocity of money (i.e., the frequency with which money is spent or circulated in an economy), whose growth fluctuated around the zero mark for over a decade, has turned sharply negative with annualized growth rates of well over -10 percent. A return to higher velocity would, given a now much enlarged stock of money, herald higher inflation down the road.

Over the past two or three years, velocity has dropped, meaning the demand for money to hold has risen dramatically. This change occurred for two reasons.

• First, given the uncertainty about the future of the economy, the direction of aggregate demand, and the solvency of many financial institutions in the US, people would prefer to hold their wealth in money rather than other assets.
• Second, when interest rates are low, the opportunity costs (foregone interest income) of holding money are much lower. People opt to hold more money and fewer other financial assets.

These two explanations probably account for most of the drop in the velocity of money. Money doesn't turn over so fast because people hold more of it and hold it longer.

But with all the potential liquidity that is out there, the current situation is most likely an unstable equilibrium. As people regain even a smidgeon of confidence, and/or as people come to experience higher interest rates, and/or as people come to expect higher rates of inflation, we will not want to hold such humongous money balances.

And as we start converting our monetary assets into other assets, velocity will increase and so will aggregate demand. As Siklos and many others have warned, with all the liquidity already in the system, a rapidly increasing velocity will unleash gi-normous inflationary pressures in the next year or so. To head off the potential inflation, both the Fed and the Bank of Canada must be prepared to offset this rise in velocity by reducing the growth in liquidity or maybe even reducing the actual amount of liquidity.

Two questions arise from this analysis:

1. Do you think the monetary authorities can do it (or are even willing to try)? I think the odds are considerably higher that they can in Canada than in the US. If so, Canuck-buck denominated assets might be good investments (unless this effect has already been capitalized into the market, of course).
2. What's a good hedge against this type of potential inflation? What hedge has not already been capitalized into market prices?

The Full Popular Science Archive Is Available On-Line

I used to read Popsci now and then as a teen. I don't know that I'd have much interest in this now, but some of you might.

WWII in FaceBook-ese

If you are not familiar with FaceBook, this link will not mean much to you, but I thought it was hilarious. Each country is represented as participating like FaceBook friends.  E.g.:

• Germany is now "single" 5 June 19:44
• Japan: US just sent you two gifts 9 Aug 19:45
• followed by comment from Japan: F*** me

Here is the link [h/t Kais].

Hella: a VERY Large Number

In casual conversation, people often say, "That's a hella lot" .... I guess.... But now many folks are hoping to formalize the term. Kilo, mega, giga, tera, .... , hella.  From the Daily Mail (h/t MA),

A campaign to name the number 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 'hella' is attracting strong support from scientists.

An online petition started in California - where the word 'hella' is slang for 'many' - is calling for the word to become an internationally recognised prefix, joining the likes of mega, kilo and giga.

The word would apply to figures with 27 zeros after the first digit.

Student's Mom Spams His Facebook Wall

In a previous posting, I mentioned that the mom of one of my students had been spamming his Facebook Wall. I'm not good at screen captures and edits, so you'll have to trust me that this a true chronological rendition of the relevant postings (with the names changed; Joe is my student, Mary is his mom):

Joe: Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass....it's about learning how to dance in the rain. Be kinder than necessary, because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Karen (Joe's sister?): I love how you stole this from your mother :)

Joe posted a link to Mary's wall [This video, presumably]

Mary (Joe's Mom): Joe, you are such a nice boy, any girl would be privileged to date you. [Tuesday 4:04pm]

Mary: So, Joe....you should be studying, not sending me bazaar video clips on facebook. [Tuesday, 4:05pm]

Mary: Actually, that should be bizarre....I believe:) [Tuesday, 4:07pm]

Mary: I was thinking about you today, and I was concerned about your hearing, have you cleaned your ears lately? Are you brushing your teeth after every meal? Do you have enough deodorant? You won't find a girl if you smell bad! [Tuesday, 4:09pm]

Mary: Your mommy loves you sooooo much!!!! [Tuesday, 4:10pm]

Mary: Do you have enough toilet paper in your apartment? [Tuesday, 4:11pm]

Mary: We can't have you washing your bum in the sink like in Step Brothers. I can fedex some over if you need some. [Tuesday, 4:15pm]

This was beginning to sound suspicious. An hour later, there were two comments on the above posting,

Susan: An hour ago your mom was at work which makes me think she left her Facebook open and her wonderful daughters are having some fun. [Tuesday, 5:39pm]

Karen: actually, I hate to tell you this but it was totally her..(look at the video on mom's facebook if you are confused) [Tue at 5:43pm]

Joe: really regrets sending his mother this video.... [Tuesday, 6:09pm]

Next morning:

Mary: So, Joe, what are you up to today? Working hard on school work I hope and staying away from all those bad girls who go to school with you. [Wed 9:12am]

Joe: wishes he was your derivative, so he could lie tangent to your curves.... [Wed 11:56am], followed by several comments from his university friends.

Mary: How are you going to get a nice girl if you talk like that? [one minute later! Wed, 11:57am]

Mary: Joe, are you using your time efficiently and effectively? [Wed, 10:47pm]

this was followed by five comments:

Joe: Mother, you have taken this too far...If you wish to talk to me, please call me. You know I would love to talk to you anytime. Miss you too mom! Wed at 10:50pm

Mary: I cannot stalk you on facebook if I am on the phone. This is so much more fun. Wed at 10:51pm

Susan: Hey, can I get in on this too? It looks like so much fun.  Wed at 10:55pm

John (Joe's brother): Stalk your own kids, Susan; Mom's got Joe covered. Wed at 11:14pm

Susan: But Joe is more fun. Besides Brian does not have me as a friend. Now I know why. Thursday at 7:12am

Actually, it sounds as if they were all having some fun at Joe's expense, even though I think Joe was a bit embarrassed ...

Parents Stalking Their Teenagers on Facebook

One of my students pointed me toward this (spoof) video in which a mom explains how she uses a fake id on FaceBook to keep tabs on her son while he is off at university.

"Just swear a lot and make a lot of typos..."

The student who pointed me toward this video says that he made the mistake of also sending it to his mom, and now she is spamming his FaceBook wall...

I must say, I don't spam the FB walls of my progeny; but there certainly are things on their FB pages that I would just as soon not know about.

Let's Celebrate Middle East Apartheid Week

In response to the students and professors who are holding anti-Israel week on various campuses, Alan Dershowitz has suggested there should be a week (or more, I might add) devoted to the study of racism and discrimination throughout the Middle East. Some particularly pithy excerpts:

As one who strongly opposes any censorship, my solution is to fight bad speech with good speech, lies with truth and educational malpractice with real education.

Accordingly, I support a "Middle East Apartheid Education Week" to be held at universities throughout the world. It would be based on the universally accepted human rights principle of "the worst first." In other words, the worst forms of apartheid being practiced by Middle East nations and entities would be studied and exposed first. ...

Under this principle, the first country studied would be Saudi Arabia. That tyrannical kingdom practices gender apartheid to an extreme, relegating women to an extremely low status. Indeed, a prominent Saudi Imam recently issued a fatwa declaring that anyone who advocates women working alongside men or otherwise compromises with absolute gender apartheid is subject to execution. The Saudis also practice apartheid based on sexual orientation, executing and imprisoning gay and lesbian Saudis. Finally, Saudi Arabia openly practices religious apartheid. It has special roads for "Muslims only." It discriminates against Christians, refusing them the right to practice their religion openly. And needless to say, it doesn't allow Jews the right to live in Saudi Arabia, to own property or even (with limited exceptions) to enter the country. Now that's apartheid with a vengeance.

The second entity on any apartheid list would be Hamas, which is the de facto government of the Gaza Strip. Hamas too discriminates openly against women, gays, Christians. It permits no dissent, no free speech, and no freedom of religion.

Every single Middle East country practices these forms of apartheid to one degree or another. Consider the most "liberal" and pro-American nation in the area, namely Jordan. The Kingdom of Jordan, which the King himself admits is not a democracy, has a law on its books forbidding Jews from becoming citizens or owning land. Despite the efforts of its progressive Queen, women are still de facto subordinate in virtually all aspects of Jordanian life.

Iran, of course, practices no discrimination against gays, because its President has assured us that there are no gays in Iran. In Pakistan, Sikhs have been executed for refusing to convert to Islam, and throughout the Middle East, honor killings of women are practiced, often with a wink and a nod from the religious and secular authorities.

Every Muslim country in the Middle East has a single, established religion, namely Islam, and makes no pretense of affording religious equality to members of other faiths. That is a brief review of some, but certainly not all, apartheid practices in the Middle East.

Now let's turn to Israel. The secular Jewish state of Israel recognizes fully the rights of Christians and Muslims and prohibits any discrimination based on religion (except against Conservative and Reform Jews, but that's another story!) Muslim and Christian citizens of Israel (of which there are more than a million) have the right to vote and have elected members of the Knesset, some of whom even oppose Israel's right to exist. There is an Arab member of the Supreme Court, an Arab member of the Cabinet and numerous Israeli Arabs in important positions in businesses, universities and the cultural life of the nation. ...

There is complete freedom of dissent in Israel and it is practiced vigorously by Muslims, Christians and Jews alike. And Israel is a vibrant democracy.

What is true of Israel proper, including Israeli Arab areas, is not true of the occupied territories. ... I have long opposed civilian settlements in the West Bank, as many, perhaps most Israelis, do. But to call an occupation, which continues because of the refusal of the Palestinians to accept the two-state solution, "Apartheid" is to misuse that word. As those of us who fought in the actual struggle of apartheid well understand, there is no comparison between what happened in South Africa and what is now taking place on the West Bank. ...

The current "Israel Apartheid Week" on universities around the world, by focusing only on the imperfections of the Middle East's sole democracy, is carefully designed to cover up far more serious problems of real apartheid in Arab and Muslim nations. The question is why do so many students identify with regimes that denigrate women, gays, non-Muslims, dissenters, environmentalists and human rights advocates, while demonizing a democratic regime that grants equal rights to women (the chief justice and speaker of the Parliament of Israel are women), gays (there are openly gay generals in the Israeli Army), non-Jews (Muslims and Christians serve in high positions in Israel) and dissenters, (virtually all Israelis dissent about something). Israel has the best environmental record in the Middle East, it exports more life saving medical technology than any country in the region and it has sacrificed more for peace than any country in the Middle East. Yet on many college campuses democratic, egalitarian Israel is a pariah, while sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, terrorist Hamas is a champion. There is something very wrong with this picture. [emphasis added]

The Tim Horton Lottery is Back; our Sculpture Celebrating It(but is it art?)

Every spring, Tim Hortons runs a "roll up the rim to win" contest, which many of us refer to as the TH Lottery. Several years ago, my older son (David Ricardo Palmer) and I spent three months working on a three-dimensional art piece commemorating playing and losing in this lottery. To see photos of the work and to read more about it, click here. The piece was exhibited in two different art galleries (at different times, of course) in Ontario that summer.

From the artists' statement:

L’ Arc des Perdants Anonymes
(The Arch of the Anonymous Losers):
A Celebration of the Existential Quest
by John Palmer and [David Ricardo] Palmer

Like many triumphal arches, this sculpture is a celebration.

In this work, we celebrate the process of continued search and quest despite not reaching a specific goal or prize. Constructed entirely of losing cups from the 2004 Tim Horton’s “Roll Up the Rim to Win” contest, our work is rooted in the ontological search for meaning.

People who search for meaning in life are often frustrated, feeling lost when they are unable to arrive at some clear and definitive sense of purpose. The existential answer lies in the joy and value of the search activity itself.

We see the experience of playing the Tim Horton lottery as a reflection of this search. People buy cups of coffee hoping to win a big prize. They lose. They go back for more. And the process makes people smile. This simple, day-to-day process is a symbolic representation of the joie de vivre that is evinced in the human experiential quest for meaning.

L’ Arc des Perdants Anonymes is constructed with nearly 3000 used, losing cups from the Tim Horton’s 2004 contest. The artists used approximately 10 pounds of glue sticks to construct the sections of the structure. These sections are held together in places with 3M hook and loop material. The artists gratefully acknowledge the assistance of their families and persons at their respective workplaces.