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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

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: 'Noodles,' Asian style is a carb sub, sure. But they are also amazingly delicious and colorful

April 19, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When violence seems the only answer

Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy

Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Harvard Health Letters: Can you die of a broken heart?

Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds

Nora Schultz: Oxytocin helps beat booze cravings

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: Middle Eastern cuisine meets Italian delicious with this lentil and eggplant pastitsio

April 17, 2013

Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom

Geoffrey Mohan: Can computers decode dreams? Researchers take a first step

Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 heart-healthy eating tips help cut saturated fat but not taste

Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Told your child has sensory processing disorder? Seek a second opinion

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Corn and Curry Add Zing to Chilled Soup

April 15, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Death of Education?

Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral

Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators

Kristin Ohlson : The loneliest fight

The Kosher Gourmet by Dana Velden: A tasty, rich dish that hints at spring's arrival while still anchored in a favorite winter staple


Jewish World Review May 19, 2006 / 21 Iyar, 5766

Bush's seven freedoms

By Michael Barone


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There have been complaints in the past several weeks that George W. Bush's foreign policy has become incoherent — that his refusal to label Yasser Arafat a terrorist was inconsistent with his proclamation of a war against terrorism, that the administration's warm words about the temporary ouster of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez was inconsistent with American support for electoral democracy.


There is something to these arguments: In a messy world, clear principle must sometimes give way to expediency, and reasonable people will differ on when that should be. But these complaints also overlook the clear statement of our aims in the war against terrorism that Bush made in his State of the Union address January 29 and echoed in his speech at Virginia Military Institute April 17.


"The nonnegotiable demands of human liberty," Bush told Congress in January, are "the rule of law; limits on the power of the state; respect for women; private property; free speech; equal justice; and religious tolerance." At VMI, he repeated the same list, though he omitted free speech — presumably an oversight or slip of the tongue.


It is an interesting list. Bush was attempting — deliberately, it can be said with assurance — to echo Franklin Roosevelt's proclamation of the Four Freedoms in January 1941. But Bush's Seven Freedoms are different from Roosevelt's, and some are stated in terms unfamiliar in American presidential rhetoric. They reflect changes in American concepts of freedom that developed in the six decades in which the United States vanquished fascist and communist totalitarianism.


Speaking before the United States entered World War II, Roosevelt explained, "In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms." The first was "freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world" — an item also on Bush's list, though it does not come first. "The second is freedom of every person to worship G-d in his own way" — also on Bush's list. Then comes "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear," which Roosevelt translated as "economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants" and "a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor."

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Note that Roosevelt was looking here toward something like an increase in the powers of the state and to international organizations. He was speaking in the backdrop of the 1930s, when market economics and existing international organizations and treaties seemed to have failed. He was pointing toward free trade, the welfare state, and "a wider and permanent system of international security" — goals made more explicit in the Atlantic Charter that he and Winston Churchill proclaimed on a battleship off Newfoundland in August 1941. And indeed all three of these goals have been pursued by the United States and other democracies in the 60 years since.


But the experiences of the Cold War and the decade afterward, and the challenge of Islamist radicalism, have made it plain, at least to Bush, that they are not enough. Some of his Seven Freedoms point in another direction from Roosevelt's. Seeing how totalitarian states limited human freedom, he explicitly calls for "limits on the power of the state." Realizing that many Third World and former Communist nations have become what Fareed Zakaria called "illiberal democracies," holding democratic elections still abridging human freedom, he calls for "the rule of law" and "equal justice."


Acknowledging, as economists have increasingly recognized, that market economics is the best recipe for economic growth and prosperity, he insists on the right of "private property" — here echoing the Founding Fathers, whose emphasis on property rights was widely regarded as outmoded in Roosevelt's time. And recognizing the gains of feminism, and the oppression of women under Islamist doctrine, he calls for "respect for women."


These Seven Freedoms help to explain the tension between Bush's proclamation that we are fighting terrorism and states that aid it on the one hand and his policies toward the Palestinians and Venezuela on the other. He has in effect sanctioned Ariel Sharon's attempt to destroy the Palestinian infrastructure of terrorism in the West Bank, which is consistent with the Seven Freedoms, for Israel honors and the Palestinian Authority does not honor the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, private property, equal justice, and religious tolerance. And his apparent acquiescence in the failed overthrow of Hugo Chavez is consistent also, for Chavez's regime, though elected, does not honor the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, and private property.


Of course, it is not practical to seek all goals. Roosevelt and his successors, in fighting totalitarianism, enlisted allies, not all of whom honored the Four Freedoms. Bush, in hosting Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah in Texas, is enlisting an ally (or propitiating an adversary) who certainly does not honor all of the Seven Freedoms. But it is still true that Bush, like Roosevelt, is pointing the nation and the world in a coherent direction, toward goals that the vast majority of the American people share.

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BARONE'S LATEST
Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future  

America is divided into two camps, according to U.S. News and World Reports writer and Fox commentator Michael Barone. No, not Red and Blue, though one suspects Barone may taint the two groups in the hues of the 2000 presidential election. Barone's divided America is one part Hard, one part Soft. Hard America is steeled by the competition and accountability of the free market, while Soft America is the product of public school and government largesse. Inspired by the notion that America produces incompetent 18 year olds and remarkably competent 30 year olds, Barone embarks on a breezy 162-page commentary that will spark mostly huzzahs from the right and jeers from the left. Sales help fund JWR.

JWR contributor Michael Barone is a columnist at U.S. News & World Report. Comment by clicking here.




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