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A man named Lincoln, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Longtime readers have heard me talk about, and cite, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart many times. He is a Republican from Miami, and he has been an invaluable member of Congress. Now he is retiring, for which Congress will be the poorer.

I wrote about Diaz-Balart and his family back in 2003 -- for my National Review piece ?Meet the Diaz-Balarts,? go here. For generations, the Diaz-Balarts have been a prominent political family, first in Cuba, then here. Lincoln?s father said of his four boys, ?They?re 100 percent American and 100 percent Cuban.? Somehow, in this family, that adds up.

Lincoln was first elected to Congress in 1992. He has been a consistent advocate of Reaganism, freedom -- what he would not blush to call Judeo-Christian civilization. As a young man, he was a Democrat. (Like so many of us!) But Reagan changed him (ditto), and so did Sen. Christopher Dodd -- whose apologies for left-wing tyranny, particularly in Latin America, repulsed him. When I talked with him in 2003, Diaz-Balart described Jeane Kirkpatrick as his ?soulmate? -- someone whose thinking and spirit were like his.

His aunt was married, for a short time, to Fidel Castro. And the dictator liked to tease, when schmoozing the Democratic congressmen who flocked to him, ?Give my regards to my nephew. He?s in Congress, you know.?

He will not be in Congress for much longer. But his brother Mario, also a Miami Republican, will run again. And Lincoln will not likely be idle: He has pledged to keep working for freedom -- everywhere -- and against the likes of ?Uncle? Fidel.

I have written a couple of times about the church burnings in East Texas; they have climbed up to ten or so. And two men have now been charged with arson, as we learn in this report. The church burnings, many as they are, have not really made national news: because there is no racial aspect. And, this being America, you need race, as a rule.

But many readers have pointed out to me: What if the churches had been abortion clinics? Or mosques? Wouldn?t the burnings have been national news then?

You bet your sweet behinds . . .

For some time, I wrote about ?safe zones?: zones that are free of partisan politics, or ought to be. And ?safe-zone violations? occur all the time. I talked about this in sportswriting, in this piece here.

A reader has pointed out to me a piece in Philadelphia magazine -- here. It concerns the Curtis Institute of Music, the conservatory in Philadelphia. You?re reading along, then you hit this: ?Though it sometimes happens that the child of a famous musician attends, there are no spots kept open for legacies; the music world needs no George Dubyas.?

Why, thanks. Thanks ever so much, Mr. Writer. You might have mentioned Kennedys. Or you might have left political and personal belittlement out of the article altogether.

Readers may recall that some of us got in trouble for calling Obama arrogant, or arrogant-seeming -- this was after the State of the Union address. And when I say we ?got in trouble,? I mean that we were denounced and vilified by Keith Olbermann. I wrote about this here.

I was interested to read Theodore Dalrymple in the current City Journal. His piece is about John Kenneth Galbraith, the late left-wing economist, and he writes,

Galbraith has come back into fashion: not only his ideas, which imply the need for a huge and expanding class of redemptory politicians and bureaucrats to save people from a fate that would be wretched without them, but his aristocratic assumption of unchallengeable moral superiority, written in his prose as it appears to be written on President Obama?s face.

Bingo.

Years ago, a friend and I used to joke about a phrase of Jesse Jackson?s: ?I?m a tree-shaker, not a jelly-maker.? We used to say that to each other about ourselves: ?Hey, I?m a tree-shaker, not a jelly-maker!? I think Jackson meant that he was a big-picture man, not a detail man.

I had rather forgotten about this. But it came back when I was reading another piece in City Journal: this one about the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a conservative activist whom Jackson has scorned. He denounced the likes of Peterson as ?parasites who want to pick up apples from trees they didn?t shake.?

Well, then. Jesse Jackson?s ego is so large, I?m surprised there?s room for anything else in America, even a walnut, much less the Sears Tower (or whatever they?re calling it now).

Let me continue my jottings about Internet freedom -- I started a couple of columns ago; and I am building from a piece I have on this subject in the February 22 NR. I have spoken about China and the Arab world. A few words about Iran?

Let me simply quote a New York Times report from last December:

In August, after the suppression of Iran?s pro-democracy protests, officials in Tehran accused Western governments of using online social networks like Twitter and Facebook to help execute a ?soft coup.? The accusation wasn?t entirely off-base. In Iran and elsewhere, this year showed the growing importance of social networks to U.S. foreign policy.

Now have a slice from Hillary Clinton?s big Internet-freedom speech, given on January 21:

In the demonstrations that followed Iran?s presidential elections, grainy cell phone footage of a young woman?s bloody murder provided a digital indictment of the government?s brutality. We?ve seen reports that when Iranians living overseas posted online criticism of their nation?s leaders, their family members in Iran were singled out for retribution. And despite an intense campaign of government intimidation, brave citizen journalists in Iran continue using technology to show the world and their fellow citizens what is happening inside their country. In speaking out on behalf of their own human rights, the Iranian people have inspired the world. And their courage is redefining how technology is used to spread truth and expose injustice.

So great.

From a Washington Times report, December 18:

The Obama administration has waived some Iran sanctions so that ordinary Iranians can download U.S.-made software used in social media and networking Web sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, that help disseminate information bypassing government censorship.

Another nugget from this report:

At one point during the postelection demonstrations, the State Department asked Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance, which would have shut the site down for several hours.

A laudable, somewhat underreported move.

A word from NPR?

[Iran?s] young [democratic] revolutionaries -- ?Greens? -- are using proxy servers to circumvent the thousands of government blocks on international Web sites. They?re uploading media within hours, sometimes minutes, from cell phones to YouTube, as evidence of ongoing protests. They?re creating Facebook and Twitter accounts under pseudonyms and using those accounts to post events, videos, articles and codes.

In the current NR -- just out -- I have a piece on an Iranian exile journalist named Manuchehr Honarmand. He has a dramatic, all too dramatic, life story. He now operates a website called Khandaniha (here), which transmits news and opinion. He told me that, without the Internet, ?no one could communicate.? Bluntly, ?the green movement has no other weapon than the Internet.?

I hope you don?t mind these little blurbs, or quotings. In my next column, I will continue, this time focusing on Cuba (an area of near-total, but not total, darkness, where the Internet is concerned).

Readers may recall that I had an impromptu on Stephen Vincent Benét?s poem ?American Names,? which is stained, I?m afraid, by the N-word. This raised the question, ?What do you Bowdlerize and what do you leave alone?? I addressed this topic -- further addressed it -- in a Corner item yesterday: ?Tis here, if you?re interested.

Interested in the problem of which foreign words and phrases to translate and which to leave just as they are, without translation or elaboration? There?s a Corner item for that, too: here.

I could give you more, but let?s get on with Impromptus . . .

The other day, I heard someone use ?access? as a verb, and I thought, ?You know, I think it?s time to give up. I think it?s time to accept this development.? For a long time, I resisted ?access? used this way: ?to access a database? or something. Seemed irredeemably ugly and wrong. But gradually, the ear and mind adjust to such things. And nouns frequently become verbs: as in ?to table a motion.? I have always written ?to gain access? or something, where other people freely use ?access? as the verb. But I believe I?m about worn down. ?To access? sounds more or less natural.

Am I a linguistic liberal? Listen, the more you learn about English, the harder it is to be a prescriptivist. A few years ago, I read and reviewed David Crystal?s book The Stories of English. That cured me of whatever prescriptivism I had remaining. Because the terrible truth is this: In every era, that which is considered traditional and proper and inviolable was once considered heretical. Our present-day ?rules?? They were breakings of the rules, once upon a time. And so it goes, with this ever-shifting and protean language.

So, ?access the database? it is. But I have to tell you -- and I have no rhyme or reason for it -- I?m not yet ready for ?impact?: for ?impact? as a verb. (?That movie impacted me in a big way.?) (An impacted tooth, I will of course accept.) ?To impact? is an uglyism too far, for me. For now . . .

Let?s have a little good-news, bad-news, where the Youth of America are concerned. Actually, let?s do it in the other order: bad news first.

Jay,

 

My niece goes to a ?good? high school in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Of course, they use Zinn?s history textbook. Now she says that they are studying medical care, and their main source is [Michael Moore?s fraudulent documentary] Sicko.

Great, just great. But here comes your other letter:

Jay,

 

My son, who is 16 (and attends boarding school), reads The Economist each week. Last summer, he wrote a letter to the editor, because the tone of every article is so anti-Israel. He said to me, ?Mom, don?t they get it? Don?t they see that Israel is our aircraft carrier in the Middle East?? This boy is teaching himself Arabic and wants to be a translator for the Special Forces.

Whoa. Wow.

Finally, a reader shares with us a Texas-ism: ?The smaller the woman, the bigger the truck.?

Phenomenal. Thanks, cool ones, and I?ll see you.

 

 

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Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on February 23, 2010 (boomark / email).