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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review Nov. 17, 2005 / 15 Mar-Cheshvan, 5766

Vive la Difference!

By James Lileks


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Francophiles may unclench. After weeks of national unrest, Jacques Chirac finally got tough on the car-broilers: He proposed job training for 50,000 of the unemployed malcontents. That'll teach 'em.


Of course, job training is one thing; actual jobs are another. Given the French economic performance — regularly described as anemic, which might be apt if the body had any blood left — the chance of 50,000 jobs materializing for the rioters is rather slim. But you can see the point. "My father in Algiers," the rioter may think, "he was unable to find work as a taxi driver. But here in France, I am unable to find work as a medical technician. I dream that my children will grow up unable to find work as doctors."


If cities across the United States went up in flames for two weeks, Dominique de Villepin would blame it on hamburgers, cowboy movies, global warming and Mickey Mouse. But why hasn't it happened here? Two reasons.


One is less social planning. The U.S. realizes now that high-rise housing projects for the poor are ghastly failures. Oh, the idea was nice; level the pestilential slums, build gigantic brick bins with ventilation holes, and poverty will be solved. Unfortunately, stacking people 20 stories high in cement hives doesn't seem to build close-knit communities. Add the twin stains of racism and the dole, and you have bleak, feral dysfunction factories. The U.S. is tearing them down; the French build more.


But it's more than the size of our projects. The American projects do not birth a fortnight of national firebombings. The American identity is protean, and the underclass does not feel the sort of utter existential alienation that characterizes the Arab experience in Gaul.


Which leads to cause No. 2: the M Word.


The riots are not entirely a Muslim groove. The protesters do not wish to institute Shariah. Many of the louts are frank criminals, and it's unlikely they torch Citroens for the right to have their hands lopped off by the local religious council. Some shout "Allahu Akbar," but for many it's like yelling the name of the home team during a soccer bout.


The devoutness of the agitators, however, is irrelevant; revolutions usually put the worst sort of tyrants in power once the rabble has cleared the way. (See also "French Revolution.") If the end result of the riots is more autonomy, the suburbs of Paris will be a foreign country, a shard of irredentist Islam in the heart of Europe. If they have portraits of Napoleon on the wall, it'll be to show the correct way to hide the hand that triggers the bomb belt.


So the rioters will not be bought off with job training. They know they have a brie-spined enemy, filled with doubt. Chirac, after all, spoke of a national "crisis of meaning, a crisis of identity." Hardly a call to the barricades, especially when ordinary Frenchmen are thinking about a crisis of flaming cars. He also used the deadly word "malaise" to describe the French mood, and if history is any judge this means Ronald Reagan should be elected president in a landslide. That the Gipper is unavailable is too bad for Europe.


Its modern vision — a post-national multiethnic welfare state linked by nothing but the language in which people curse one another — is fatally flawed. The rioters can't be dispelled with Brussels-based regulations specifying the number of cars one can burn per night. But the ruling class will accept no alternatives, brook no heresies.


The revolutions of '68 brought to power the romantic leftists who despised the old order, its sense of tradition, its bourgeois values, its confident (if unexamined) cultural coherence. They built a new order based on dorm-room bong-fest ideas, and now they face the future unmanned. They can't even revert to the hypernationalist models of the '30s — Jean-Marie Le Pen drew only 300 people at a recent rally. Fascism is too much work these days, even for the old pros.


Oh, we'll always have Paris. But don't think some angry lads aren't looking from their ghettos at the Eiffel Tower, and thinking what an excellent minaret it would make.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor James Lileks is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Comment by clicking here.

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