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 'Garbage man' in cells could extend life 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 Top Muslim cleric boycotts inter-faith dialogue conference attended by 'Jews' 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 Hagel, on maiden Middle East visit, arrives in Israel bearing gifts and promises 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 Dec. 29, 2005 / 28 Kislev, 5766 Hollywood's misunderstood terrorists By Victor Davis Hanson http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When terrorism goes to the movies in the post-Sept. 11 world, we might expect the plots, characters and themes to reflect some sort of believable reality. But in Hollywood, the politically correct impulse now overrides all else. Even the spectacular pyrotechnics, beautiful people and accomplished acting cannot hide it. Instead, moviegoers can anticipate before the opening credits that those characters who work for the American government or are at war with terrorists will likely be portrayed as criminals, incompetents or people existing on the same moral plane as killers. Take this fall's "Flightplan," in which the U.S. air marshal on board and a flight attendant turn out to be the true terrorists. Meanwhile, four Middle Eastern males are unfairly put under suspicion in the lynch-mob atmosphere on the plane. The film warns us that the real threat after Sept. 11 is certainly not young Middle Eastern males on planes who might hijack or crash them into iconic American buildings. No, more dangerous in Hollywood's alternate universe are the flight officials themselves — who in reality on Sept. 11 battled terrorists only to have their throats cut before being blown up with all the passengers. A slickly filmed "Syriana" is the worst of the recent releases. The film's problem is not just that it predictably presents the bad, ugly sheik as a puppet of American oil interests while the handsome and good independent crown price is assassinated for championing his oppressed people against Western hegemony. Or that the conniving corporate potentates have big bellies and Southern accents while the good-hearted, sloppily dressed George Clooney is double-crossed by his stylish, pampered CIA bosses safe in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. "Syriana" also perverts historical reality. Everything connected with the oil industry is portrayed as corrupt and exploitive, with no hint that petroleum fuels civilization. Hollywood producers might not see many oil rigs off the Malibu coast, but someone finds and delivers them gas each morning for their luxury cars. And who are the really greedy? Do the simple arithmetic of pumping petroleum in the desert: After expenses of typically under $5 a barrel, rigged cartels in the Middle East — run by Iranian mullahs, Gulf royals or Libyan autocrats — sell it on the world market for between $50 to $60. They don't merely price-gouge Americans in their SUVs, but also third-world struggling economies in places like Africa and Latin America. Plus, in the real world outside Hollywood, does the United States really assassinate Gulf royalty who wish to liberalize their economies and give women the right to vote? Contrary to "Syriana"'s premise, the gripe against contemporary American foreign policy is just the opposite. Realists, isolationists and leftists alike damn the United States as naive or foolish for obsessing over democratic reform in Afghanistan and Iraq, pressuring Saudi Arabia and Egypt to hold valid elections and insisting that the terrorist patron Syria leave the voters of Lebanon alone. The price of gas skyrocketed after the American invasion of Iraq. And oil companies, especially French and Russian, were furious when Saddam Hussein's kleptocracy fell —and their sweetheart deals were nullified by a new democratic Iraqi government. Moral equivalence is perhaps the most troubling of Hollywood's postmodern pathologies — or the notion that each side that resorts to violence is of the same ethical nature. Steven Spielberg best summed up the theme of his recently released film about the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the subsequent Israeli hunt of the perpetrators: "A response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine." Spielberg's "Munich" assumes just such a false symmetry between the killers who murdered the innocent athletes and the Israeli agents who hunted them down — each in their own way victimized and caught in a cycle of "perpetual" violence. Lost in this pop moralizing is the reality of 1972, when none of Israel's neighbors were willing to accept the existence of the Jewish state within even its original borders. Then there was no chance that Israeli agents would storm an Olympic event and murder athletes — but every probability that the Soviet bloc, Western Europeans and Middle East autocracies would never hunt down international terrorists who had done so to Israelis. Actors, producers, screenwriters and directors of Southern California live in a bubble, where coast, climate and plentiful capital shield the film industry from the harsh world. In their good intentions, these tanned utopians can afford to dream away fascist killers and instead rail at Western bogeymen — even in the midst of a global war against Middle East jihadists who wish to trump what they wrought at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. If Hollywood wants to know why attendance is down, it is not just the misdemeanor sin of warping reality but the artistic felony that it does so in such a predictable manner. 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. Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and military historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Comment by clicking here. Archives © 2005, TMS

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Jay Ambrose  Michael Barone  Barrywood  Lori Borgman  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Richard Z. Chesnoff  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  Christine Flowers  Frank J. Gaffney  Bernie Goldberg  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Argus Hamilton  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Ron Hart  Nat Hentoff  A. Barton Hinkle  Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ch. Krauthammer  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Ann McFeatters  Dale McFeatters  Dana Milbank  Jeanne Moos  Dick Morris  Jim Mullen  Deroy Murdock  Judge A. Napolitano  Bill O'Reilly  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Star Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Sharon Randall  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Heather Robinson  Debra J. Saunders  Martin Schram  Greg Schwem  Culture Shlock  David Shribman  Roger Simon  Lenore Skenazy  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Ben Stein  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Dan Thomasson  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  ZeitGeist  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo   Lisa Benson  Chip Bok  Dry Bones  John Branch  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  Matt Davies  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Glenn Foden  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Walt Handelsman  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holbert  David Horsey  Lee Judge  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Jimmy Margulies  Jack Ohman  Michael Ramirez  Rob Rogers  Drew Sheneman  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Scott Stantis  Danna Summers  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters   Dan Wasserman  Tech Q&A  Mr. Know-It-All  Ask Doctor K  Richard Lederer  Frugal Living  On Nutrition  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams