September 15, 2007 | 5:07 pm

Waking up in the morgue

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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CARACAS (Reuters) - A Venezuelan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in excruciating pain after medical examiners began their autopsy.

   

Carlos Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a highway accident and taken to the morgue, where examiners began an autopsy only to realize something was amiss when he started bleeding. They quickly sought to stitch up the incision on his face.

   

“I woke up because the pain was unbearable,” Camejo said, according to a report on Friday in leading local newspaper El Universal.

   

His grieving wife turned up at the morgue to identify her husband’s body only to find him moved into a corridor—and alive.

 

Wow. This reminds me of that scene from “Heroes” when Claire Bennet, whose body spontaneously regenerates when injured, wakes up on a cold table with her torso butterflied. You can see that clip—not for the squeamish—here; “Heroes” is back for Season 2 in a week.

September 15, 2007 | 12:37 pm

Mormon missionaries undressed

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Here’s a Saturday surprise from TMZ, by way of a hat tip from the GeekHeeb.

Hot priests are so last year! The hottest calendar for 2008 is the Men on a Mission calendar, full of hot, shirtless Mormon men. What would Joseph Smith, Jr. say?!  The “devout dozen” jumped off their bikes long enough to pose for the controversial day keeper, each of the LDS lotharios having just returned from missions around the world. Go west, young men!

The calendar and other products can be found at MormonsExposed.com. I prefer the “Family Values” t-shirt.

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September 14, 2007 | 11:38 am

Bush’s message ‘a pig wearing makeup’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Phillip Carter, who knows a thing or two about the English language and about the situation in Iraq, calls the substance of President Bush’s national address last night “a pig wearing makeup.”

We are basically sowing the seeds of civil war with this strategy, and doing little to mitigate the risk.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we stand today. When President Bush announced the surge in early 2007, it had a simple idea at its core: to secure the population in Baghdad and Anbar in order to facilitate political progress at the national level. Security was always a supporting task in this strategy; the main goal was political. Unfortunately, the political strategy has failed, due to the inability or unwillingness of the Iraqis to resolve fundamental questions at the heart of their society. That’s not a ding on them; these are hard questions that any society would be taxed to solve. Now, we’re stuck. The White House is trying to do damage control by taking credit for other successes which sprang from the surge, but the overall situation speaks for itself.

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September 12, 2007 | 2:40 pm

‘How a Muslim billionaire thrives in Hindu India’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

BANGALORE, India—The world’s richest Muslim entrepreneur defies conventional wisdom about Islamic tycoons: He doesn’t hail from the Persian Gulf, he didn’t make his money in petroleum, and he definitely doesn’t wear his faith on his sleeve.

A native of Mumbai, Azim Premji has tapped India’s abundant engineering talent to transform a family vegetable-oil firm, Wipro Ltd., into a technology and outsourcing giant. By serving Western manufacturers, airlines and utilities, the company has brought Mr. Premji a fortune of some $17 billion—believed to be greater than that of any other Muslim outside of Persian Gulf royalty.

Such success, Mr. Premji says in an interview, shows that globalization—a force Islamist activists decry as Western neocolonialism—is turning into “two-way traffic” that can bring tangible benefits to developing countries.

Mr. Premji’s rise is already inspiring some Indian Muslims to embrace the modern, globalized world. “He’s an icon. He shows that excellence has no caste and no creed, and that if one has excellence, one can make it to the top,” says Mohamed Javeed, principal of Bangalore’s predominantly Muslim Al-Ameen College. One of the students, Mohammed Nasseer, enthuses, “I’d love to become like Premji one day.”

A role model like Mr. Premji might seem to be what India’s Muslims need. Though the country’s economy is growing at 9% a year, the vast majority of India’s estimated 150 million Muslims—the largest Islamic population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan—remain socially marginalized, badly educated and mired in deep poverty. By and large, they’re left out of the social transformation that is propelling millions of their Hindu compatriots into prosperity, as barriers of caste disappear and India’s new corporate giants provide opportunities that never existed before.

This is from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. I was grabbed by the headline, “How a Muslim billionaire thrives in Hindu India.” To be honest, I didn’t realize there were any professionally successful Muslims in India. To begin with, Pakistan was created in 1947 because the Britons were tired of their colonial ways and the Hindus and Muslims couldn’t live together. (This was a process Britain tried repeating in Palestine.) The partition was incredibly bloody, and must Muslims who could cross into Pakistan did so.

That one of the many Muslims who remained could amass such wealth was surprising, certainly encouraging. Not surprising, though, was the response of Indian Islam’s devout.

“If you are a Muslim and want to be rich in India, you have to show you are very secular,” says Zafarul Islam Khan, secretary-general of the All-India Muslim Majlis e Mushawarat, an umbrella group.

A Muslim school a half-hour’s drive from Mr. Premji’s Bangalore home reveals the chasm between this globalist success story and the country’s Muslim masses. Students sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Masjid e Takwa madrassa spend their days memorizing the Quran in Arabic—a language that neither they nor their teacher understand.

The classes are taught in Urdu, a tongue that’s largely confined to Muslims and uses the Arabic script. There is no science in the curriculum. Neither is there English, the language in which Wipro conducts business and interviews job applicants, as it looks for Westernized staff who can deal with international customers.

The madrassa’s imam, Munir Ahmed, says that for his students, a future as self-employed shopkeepers or peddlers is preferable to seeking formal work at a large company. “A job is like being a slave,” Mr. Ahmed chuckles, adding that his graduates are in great demand as teachers in other madrassas. Schoolboys in the streets nearby, asked about Wipro, say they’ve never heard of it or of Mr. Premji.

This is obviously an issue that resonates with religious minorities wherever they live. Here in the States, there is a constant tension—some times healthy, some times less so—between Muslims remaining fastened to tradition and the acculturation necessary for upward mobility. German- and Yiddish-speaking Jews went through this a century or more ago, and, depending on who you talk to, they’re still suffering the ills of assimilation.

So the question is this: Is it wrong for someone to miscegenate the traditions of their religion with those of their host community? Are all those Muslims and Hindus and Jainists and Jews who have adjusted observance to prosper in this country making too big a sacrifice?

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September 12, 2007 | 12:34 pm

Kathy Griffin: persona non venia

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I don’t imagine D-lister Kathy Griffin has ever been endeared to the “family-values” crowd (or Jerry Seinfeld).  Now, she’s made enemies with E!, and maybe God too, with her “Jesus remark,” which has been edited out of Saturday’s telecast of the creative arts Emmys.

Fishbowl LA wonders now what E! will do with that award-winning Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg SNL song.

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September 11, 2007 | 6:21 pm

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled ...

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There are a lot of “lies that won’t die.” The U.S. role in Israel’s Six-Day War. The Jewish cabal that orchestrated 9/11. The devil convincing the world he doesn’t exist.

But six years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks—and long after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and ouster of Saddam Hussein, whom investigations had found had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks—millions of ignoramuses continue to believe otherwise. Heaven help us.

WASHINGTON — On the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, one-third of the American people continue to believe that Saddam Hussein was “personally involved” in the terrorist assault, according to one recent poll.

Other surveys show that a larger number — 40 percent or more — believe that Iraq had some role in the attacks, or that Iraq gave substantial support to al-Qaida.

The 9/11 Commission and intelligence experts never found such a connection, but even after six years of reports and news accounts, the myth of a strong Iraq-Sept. 11 link persists.

(skip)

  “The Bush administration has been extremely clever at suggesting connections without being explicit,” [Ohio State political science professor John] Mueller said. “And if you support the war, you want to believe it. You hear soldiers in Iraq all the time say that they’re there because of 9/11.”

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September 11, 2007 | 5:24 pm

Godspeed, Kevin Everett

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

My wife just messaged me this story and reminded me to keep praying for Kevin Everett, the Buffalo Bills back-up tight end who broke his neck making a routine tackle Sunday.

Injured Bills tight end Kevin Everett has voluntary movement of his arms and legs, according to a report from Buffalo TV station WIVB-TV. WIVB medical reporter Dr. Peter Ostrow says the voluntary movement shows dramatic improvement over the prognosis Everett was given Monday, when orthopedic surgeon Dr. Andrew Cappuccino called Everett’s spinal-cord injury suffered in Sunday’s game against the Denver Broncos “catastrophic” and life-threatening.

At the time, Cappuccino said Everett’s chances of regaining a full range of body motion were not very likely.

But according to WIVB-TV, Cappuccino is much more optimistic Tuesday evening.

“We may be witnessing a minor miracle,” Cappuccino said, according to the report.

My wife and I were watching the game when Everett went limp and collapsed on the field, and I can’t recall the last time either of us were so shaken by the plight of a stranger. I make the same request my wife did of me: Keep praying.

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September 11, 2007 | 12:16 pm

Qassam rocket hits Israeli military base

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Remember when I wrote last month that the Qassams being fired into the Sderot region of Israel from Gaza were inefficient weapons that caused more emotional terror than physical? Well, early this morning one hit an IDF base, wounding 69 troops and critically injuring one soldier.

Hamas issued the expected response: “We consider this a victory from God for the resistence.”

Whose God? Not mine, though my understanding of the Abrahamic faiths is that we all begin with the same singular God. If only we could have all stayed there.

My friend Robert J. Avrech at Seraphic Secret renews his call for Israel to respond by cutting the power to Gaza.

There is no reason for Israel to enable her blood enemies. The so-called Palestinians have received more foreign aid than any other country on the face of the earth. They could have used the money to build an infrastructure, to build an electrical power grid—instead of relying on Israel, their enemies, for electricity. 

Instead, the so-called Palestinian leadership stole the money, or used it to buy weapons to kill Jews. But mostly the PA leadership just pissed away billions upon billions of dollars on the most corrupt thugogracy the world has ever seen.

Last week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered his charges to look into the legal ramifications of cutting supplies to the Gaza Strip. I, however, anticipate nothing short of a major ground operation will alter the militants’ actions, which have been ongoing for six years. And I don’t expect that to happen any time soon.

L’Shana Tovah.

(Photo: From my visit to Sderot)

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September 11, 2007 | 12:08 pm

‘Israel lobby’ not working?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis at the Israel Policy Forum, penned a piece last week that asks people to not be so knee-jerk about “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” whose authors argue, Rosenberg wrote, that the pro-Israel community’s advocacy is not always in the best interest of Israel or the United States.

I spent almost 20 years as a Congressional aide and can testify from repeated personal experience that Senators and House Members are under constant pressure to support status quo policies on Israel.  It is no accident that Members of Congress compete over who can place more conditions on aid to the Palestinians, who will be first to denounce the Saudi peace plan, and who will win the right to be the primary sponsor of the next pointless Palestinian-bashing resolution.  Nor is it an accident that there is never a serious Congressional debate about policy toward Israel and the Palestinians.  Moreover, every President knows that any serious effort to push for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement based on compromise by both sides will produce loud (sometimes hysterical) opposition from the Hill.

Walt and Mearsheimer mostly limit themselves to exploring whether all this is good for the United States (and to a lesser extent, Israel). The question I ask today, and not for the first time, is whether this type of behavior is good for Israel. Forty years after the Six Day War, the occupation continues, the resistance to it intensifies, and Israelis in increasing numbers question whether they have a future in the Jewish state. Has “pro-Israel” advocacy consistently produced “pro-Israel” ends?  At several critical moments, it most certainly has not.

Read those occasions here. There have, of course, been plenty who disagree with the possibility that Walt and Mearsheimer are philo-Semitic, constructively critical observers. But Rosenberg makes an important point, the same one actually that legendary muckraker Seymour Hersh made when I interviewed him for a piece that will run in The Jewish Journal next week. “This government and that relationship is really profound,” Hersh said, “and it is just very secret between us and Israel. It is not transparent, and that is not healthy for anybody.”

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September 11, 2007 | 10:35 am

9/11 reflections

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

A couple of links for this anniversary morning.

GetReligion links to a reporter’s notebook from the morning of the 9/11 attacks.

Then, seconds later, the crown of the south tower did a little twist, and there was that horrible, horrible roar, which I can hear inside my head as I type this, as the south tower collapsed. You can see on the image below the precise moment this happened, because I had my pen to my paper. At the top of the page were quotes from bystanders gathered just before the tower went down (“This is Tom Clancy. This is unbelievable.” “Plain and simple and act of war.” “This isn’t a pizzeria w/10 employees.”) But look under the line I drew — you’ll see a shaky line falling away toward the bottom of the page. That’s where my pen was on the paper as my knees went weak and I literally began to fall down. I reached out and grabbed Jessie to keep from going down.

Then I wrote, in a crazy scrawl:

explosion, fell to ground people on bridge sobbing,
one woman
It’s not there anymore!
It collapsed!

A short, stout young black woman in front of me threw her head back and her arms open. She looked at the sky and bellowed an apocalyptic line from Scripture: “And every knew shall bow, and every tongue confess!” She added: “It ain’t over, people!”

 

For the six-years-later, what-has-it-done-to-us approach, The LA Times runs an editorial titled “What we’ve lost.”

In the years since terrorists struck New York and Washington, we can point to one significant achievement: We have avoided another attack on American soil. Given the ferocity and cunning of Al Qaeda, that is no small feat. For this, we give thanks and credit to the diligence of U.S. and foreign intelligence services, homeland security and law enforcement officials, brave counter-terrorist fighters and wily strategists in every branch of the U.S. military, and alert citizens who have helped authorities foil attacks by would-be mass murderers.

By contrast, the decision to invade Iraq has proved, in our view, a distraction from the struggle against radical Islamist terrorism, and it has cost us dearly. More than 3,700 American soldiers have lost their lives on foreign sands. Another 27,000 have returned home with injuries, many of them life-altering. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed or wounded and about 4 million forced to flee, half of them to uncertain foreign refuge. Their scars will mar the future as anger over the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and its injustices at Guantanamo Bay breedsnew enemies.

Those are harrowing consequences of a war waged by an administration that has misunderstood its enemy and its place in history. But the price of thispresident’smilitary and domestic overreach has been highest in the loss of faith in America itself, in the values and institutions that have historically defined this nation.

This editorial reminds me of a less-than-stellar piece I wrote (overwrote, no doubt) at my first paper in 2004 about how the war on terror was whittling away American freedoms. Check out the guest appearance by presidential candidate Ron Paul.

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September 10, 2007 | 9:12 pm

‘America to the Rescue’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This segment from “The Daily Show” two weeks ago starts a bit slow, but I found it’s message about American arms sales worth a sad, tired laugh.

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September 10, 2007 | 4:18 pm

Psalms of Larry David

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” one of my favorite shows because of uncomfortable similarities my wife and friends have noted between me and the show’s star, Larry David, returned last night to HBO and much fanfare.

In anticipation, the arts and entertainment editor for the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia traveled west to hang out with the creator of “Seinfeld” who knows no social norm he couldn’t abuse—I’ll give you three choices for favorite episode: “The Group,” “Trick of Treat,” or “The Christ Nail”—and tries to address the show’s Jewish “embrace.”

Maybe “embrace” is a bit too warm and huggy for such an un-haimisch heartthrob—“I’m not one of these guys that goes, ‘Hey, I’m a Jew. I’m a Jew. I’m a Jew,’ ” he says.

But there is a sense that if he isn’t exactly “The Hebrew Hammer,” he may be the “Yammering Yarmulke.”

After all, so much of his show shows his fascination—or is it frustration?—with what being Jewish means.

Spit-take? Ch-take! He’s docked the Orthodox and made mincemeat out of matzah meal on the series. Invite a stranger to seder? Sure, so who’s going to be offended if the guest’s a sex offender?

 

As the Bintel Blogger quipped: “Apparently he just plays one on TV.”

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