This is some world when Muammar Kaddafi is the last man standing to give us some sanity. We'll get to that in a minute.
In another minute we'll get to The Boys of Steroids.
Meanwhile, Kofi Annan can't reform his own son and his own home, but he's all set to reform the entire United Nations, and perhaps, the rest of the world.
After months of investigation and a reported $30 million budget (itself a scandal), Paul Volcker handed in his interim report in regards to the UN's Oil for Food Follies - and that's the end of it, pretty much; plenty of wrongdoing, but not wrong enough to eliminate Kofi's parking privileges at Turtle Bay. He keeps the limo, the title (secretary general) and, of course, the job that once belonged to Kurt Waldheim, a certified Nazi.
(Surely, we remember that Kofi's UN did not lower its flag for President Reagan, but did for Yasser Arafat.)
This, for Kofi, amounts to a slap on the wrist.
Asked if he cared to resign, since the multi-billion dollar swindle happened on his watch, Kofi borrowed some Patton. "Hell no," he blustered. In fact, Kofi has big plans to clean up the joint. (Al Capone also had plans to clean up Chicago.) Kojo, however, is in deep trouble, since Volcker and the panel he headed had to concede that this son of Kofi's - yes, Kojo - had his hands too deeply in the cookie jar to get off with a mere spanking.
For Kojo, then, it's a slap across the face.
A similar father and son business, that also kept slipping the law, were the Corleones.
I don't know Volcker - he probably is terrifically honest - but sometimes it does seem that the investigator and the investigated belong to the same club, even share the same locker.
Around the same day that Volcker went public, so did a panel charged with finding out if there is anti-Semitic harassment going on at Columbia University. A courageous number of Jewish kids say yes, and they even have the proof that anti-Semitism is stampeding through the lecture halls of Columbia (and, actually, throughout the rest of our campus firmament). The New York Times got an early copy of this report (the "Dirks Report") and summarized it like this:
"[There is] no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic."
Who were the panelists that exonerated the Columbia faculty? Members of the Columbia faculty.
In fact, the Dirks Panel blamed the Jews, saying that pro-Israel students disrupted lectures on Israel-Bashing studies. I'm sorry. My mistake. "Middle East Studies."
What a relief, though, to find that there is no anti-Semitism at Columbia, or at Pace, and a hundred other campuses. We're in good hands when administrators and faculty throw themselves a (see-no-evil) party and end up celebrating "professors" who arrive here from Arab countries with lesson plans that equate Jews to pigs, Christians to dogs.
One professor did come in for slight rebuke.
Joseph Massad got called for unnecessary roughness for intimidating a student who had the chutzpah to express pro-Israel views.
Volcker for the UN and Dirks for Columbia - each offered up a child sacrifice. Volcker gave up Kojo, Dirks gave up Massad, as if to say, "Th-th-th-that's all, folks."
In the parallel universe of Harvard, by the way, Lawrence Summers, Harvard's president, is on the ropes for remarks taken to be anti-feminist. Foaming-at-the-mouth feminists want his scalp and members of his faculty want his blood (libel). His real trouble began when, some time ago, he mentioned anti-Semitism, that it is real, and that it is all over the place. He's been a marked man ever since, and being Jewish in a faculty world full of Massads doesn't help much.
Being Jewish may help, or hurt, Hadassah Medical Organization. Those Norwegian worthies are threatening to award Hadassah with its Nobel Peace Prize. How can it help to share a prize for Peace with Yasser Arafat?
Baseball, anyone? Yet another panel, this time in our House of Representatives, upon the question as to whether Roger Maris was the last major leaguer not to use steroids. The answer from a group of baseball stars, past and present? "I dunno nutin'." Sammy Sosa suddenly couldn't speak English, or Spanish.
Mark McGwire, who broke Maris' home-run record, refused to name names, much to his credit, but also refused to name his own name. He kept saying he only wanted to talk about the future, not the past. Don't we all? My entire past should come with an asterisk, as, possibly, should every (tainted) baseball record going back 20-some years.
Oh, then there is this. The doctor who testified on behalf of baseball, Elliot Pellman, well, turns out he also doctored his resume.
Is anything real, or is it all hogwash?
To whom do we turn for some plain talk? Muammar Kaddafi. I kid you not.
At a March 23 Arab League Conference, here is part of what the Libyan strongman told fellow Arab leaders about Israel's prime minister: "He commits acts that lead to the murder of dozens and hundreds of Israelis. Therefore, he must be an agent who has been planted among the Israelis."
Get this. "Someone," continued Kaddafi, "who brings upon his people such tragedies and massacres is an enemy of his people."
Of course, Kaddafi is no friend of Israel, or of the United States, but straight talk being so rare, we'll take it even if it arrives by accident, or by asterisk.
In another minute we'll get to The Boys of Steroids.
Meanwhile, Kofi Annan can't reform his own son and his own home, but he's all set to reform the entire United Nations, and perhaps, the rest of the world.
After months of investigation and a reported $30 million budget (itself a scandal), Paul Volcker handed in his interim report in regards to the UN's Oil for Food Follies - and that's the end of it, pretty much; plenty of wrongdoing, but not wrong enough to eliminate Kofi's parking privileges at Turtle Bay. He keeps the limo, the title (secretary general) and, of course, the job that once belonged to Kurt Waldheim, a certified Nazi.
(Surely, we remember that Kofi's UN did not lower its flag for President Reagan, but did for Yasser Arafat.)
This, for Kofi, amounts to a slap on the wrist.
Asked if he cared to resign, since the multi-billion dollar swindle happened on his watch, Kofi borrowed some Patton. "Hell no," he blustered. In fact, Kofi has big plans to clean up the joint. (Al Capone also had plans to clean up Chicago.) Kojo, however, is in deep trouble, since Volcker and the panel he headed had to concede that this son of Kofi's - yes, Kojo - had his hands too deeply in the cookie jar to get off with a mere spanking.
For Kojo, then, it's a slap across the face.
A similar father and son business, that also kept slipping the law, were the Corleones.
I don't know Volcker - he probably is terrifically honest - but sometimes it does seem that the investigator and the investigated belong to the same club, even share the same locker.
Around the same day that Volcker went public, so did a panel charged with finding out if there is anti-Semitic harassment going on at Columbia University. A courageous number of Jewish kids say yes, and they even have the proof that anti-Semitism is stampeding through the lecture halls of Columbia (and, actually, throughout the rest of our campus firmament). The New York Times got an early copy of this report (the "Dirks Report") and summarized it like this:
"[There is] no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic."
Who were the panelists that exonerated the Columbia faculty? Members of the Columbia faculty.
In fact, the Dirks Panel blamed the Jews, saying that pro-Israel students disrupted lectures on Israel-Bashing studies. I'm sorry. My mistake. "Middle East Studies."
What a relief, though, to find that there is no anti-Semitism at Columbia, or at Pace, and a hundred other campuses. We're in good hands when administrators and faculty throw themselves a (see-no-evil) party and end up celebrating "professors" who arrive here from Arab countries with lesson plans that equate Jews to pigs, Christians to dogs.
One professor did come in for slight rebuke.
Joseph Massad got called for unnecessary roughness for intimidating a student who had the chutzpah to express pro-Israel views.
Volcker for the UN and Dirks for Columbia - each offered up a child sacrifice. Volcker gave up Kojo, Dirks gave up Massad, as if to say, "Th-th-th-that's all, folks."
In the parallel universe of Harvard, by the way, Lawrence Summers, Harvard's president, is on the ropes for remarks taken to be anti-feminist. Foaming-at-the-mouth feminists want his scalp and members of his faculty want his blood (libel). His real trouble began when, some time ago, he mentioned anti-Semitism, that it is real, and that it is all over the place. He's been a marked man ever since, and being Jewish in a faculty world full of Massads doesn't help much.
Being Jewish may help, or hurt, Hadassah Medical Organization. Those Norwegian worthies are threatening to award Hadassah with its Nobel Peace Prize. How can it help to share a prize for Peace with Yasser Arafat?
Baseball, anyone? Yet another panel, this time in our House of Representatives, upon the question as to whether Roger Maris was the last major leaguer not to use steroids. The answer from a group of baseball stars, past and present? "I dunno nutin'." Sammy Sosa suddenly couldn't speak English, or Spanish.
Mark McGwire, who broke Maris' home-run record, refused to name names, much to his credit, but also refused to name his own name. He kept saying he only wanted to talk about the future, not the past. Don't we all? My entire past should come with an asterisk, as, possibly, should every (tainted) baseball record going back 20-some years.
Oh, then there is this. The doctor who testified on behalf of baseball, Elliot Pellman, well, turns out he also doctored his resume.
Is anything real, or is it all hogwash?
To whom do we turn for some plain talk? Muammar Kaddafi. I kid you not.
At a March 23 Arab League Conference, here is part of what the Libyan strongman told fellow Arab leaders about Israel's prime minister: "He commits acts that lead to the murder of dozens and hundreds of Israelis. Therefore, he must be an agent who has been planted among the Israelis."
Get this. "Someone," continued Kaddafi, "who brings upon his people such tragedies and massacres is an enemy of his people."
Of course, Kaddafi is no friend of Israel, or of the United States, but straight talk being so rare, we'll take it even if it arrives by accident, or by asterisk.