Cover Girls and Boys

"Meet the Nowlands" invites the cover of the Eagle-Tribune. I already have - they're good friends of my family.

Most of the article is Matt, Kebbi and the reporter trying to explain why the Nowlands aren't crazy. If the novelty factor weren't so strong, I think, the story would have been much more interesting: according to Arricka, the reporter spent 13 hours with the family! As it is, "a day in the life" type material gets short shrift, and most of the story reads like an apologetic. I submit that a better author could have made the same points more convincingly by describing rather than quoting the family at length.

Africa Is Growing

What's very quietly happening in Africa these days is quite noteworthy. The continent is growing up. Some of it reads like gallows humor: The Post, of Lusaka, Zambia, reports that the members of the African Union successfully prevented Sudan from obtaining its rotating chairmanship, and instead formed a committee to look into the Darfur crisis. The second half of the article is devoted to the C.V. of the new committee chairman:

President Sassou-Nguesso, backed by Angolan troops, grabbed back the presidency in 1997 in a brief but bloody civil war that left a legacy of political and militia violence. The civil war lasted only a few months but destroyed much of the capital Brazzaville. Some 10,000 people are thought to have died during the war and up to a third of Congo's 2.7 million people were driven from their homes.

Meanwhile, more violence in Darfur is reported, government troops vs. rebels. And at the same time, direct foreign investment (that's not aid, it's money that corporations consider wisely invested) jumped an arresting 65% for the continent last year, and growth of 5.5% is expected.

All this comes to you, of course, from AllAfrica.com. If you don't read it now, I suggest you start: you're missing the adolescence of a continent.

Note: This article is patronizing. I haven't yet decided whether it's justified or necessary to be patronizing, but I think an above-board patronage is better than an insidious pretense of equality.

Steady On

The players in the New Palestine and their games:

Hamas. They did the right thing by asking Fatah to join the governing coalition and by not demanding that President Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) step down. If things go their way, he'll be their liaison with Israel and the West, and can be the fall guy if public opinion rejects some concession, involuntary or otherwise. Now they should focus on a smooth transition and prove that they can grow into a functional member of the New Palestine.

Fatah. They did the right thing by rejecting Hamas's offer. They need to stay low and wait for the challenger to make a mistake before striking back. For the long term, they need to rein in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and use their powerlessness as an opportunity to reform and bring some much-needed order to an organization which has become an incestuous mess.

Olmert. If you don't know, Israel's Acting Prime Minister is Ehud Olmert, like PM Ariel Sharon a founder of the new Kadima party. He has polled well recently, and needs to show Israelis that Kadima really does have new ideas and won't implode or morph back into Likudish reactionism because of the Hamas victory.

The West. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is meeting with President Abbas tomorrow. This should be the last time for a long time. Not only does the West need to be firm in its resolve not to treat with Hamas, but they need to eschew go-betweens. This isn't to say that informal or back channels shouldn't remain open - they always should - but the West has no reason and no business to try to pick and choose among Palestinian politicians. Respecting Palestine's choice of leadership means dealing only with their elected leaders, or not dealing at all. Going to old leadership in an attempt to get something done will only undermine the legitimacy of Palestinian moderates, but will never produce anything of value. I can't stress this point enough: don't try to subvert the election results, simply respond to them with firmness and an open mind. If Hamas stops the violence and preserves the democracy that empowered them, then let's talk. Until then, we can wait.

Peaceful Revolution in Palestine

Hamas wins big in an upset victory in Palestine, taking a clean majority of seats after initial results showed Fatah ahead 58 seats to 53. Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia (Abu Alaa) and his cabinet resigned this morning, and the vote and transfer of power seem to be under way in a peaceful manner. The U.S. is being smart and not saying much, leaving the onus on Hamas to make the first move.

As much as Hamas is anti-Israeli and anti-American, this result may be the best thing for peace. All of a sudden, Hamas' leaders have a lot to lose by provoking their longtime enemies, and a lot to gain by preserving calm. They'll also have "street cred" that the PA lost long, long ago. Palestinians will believe (whatever the truth) that Hamas negotiators are actually doing their best for Palestinian interests and are not wildly corrupt. Publically religious American politicians could learn something from their Palestinian counterparts: ethical behavior bespeaks a true faith.

The Right To Work?

The CS Monitor today carries an innoccuous editorial on illegal immigration. They're correct that the rule of law is too important to skirt, and I would add that an unenforced law is a bad one, even if it is a very important or morally sound statute.

The Monitor specifically addresses the work center in Herndon, Virginia, where 75% of the workers are illegals. The most obvious solution - raiding the shelter, picking up the illegals, and shipping them to their home countries - would be very damaging to the families of a few illegals, and would in any case work only once. But a different trick could be employed by the INS that might severely limit demand for illegal labor. Just as law enforcement officers pose as prostitutes and drug buyers to catch the respective criminals, officers could pose as undocumented laborers to come down hard on employers who don't check papers. This would most hurt illegal employers and new illegal immigrants, who haven't built the relationships to make themselves safe from the caution such tactics might elicit in employers. Sounds like perfect targeting to me.

More importantly, the U.S. needs to allow far more legal workers to enter our country from Mexico and from all over the world. We are an immigrant nation, and the insatiable desire to work that so many immigrants bring with them is one of our great sources of strength. The flood of illegals indicates that we have excess demand for low-skill labor: let's bring in more immigrants, or, as we could better call them, more 'potential Americans'.

Canada Steps Right

Canadian voters shooed Liberal Paul Martin and his increasingly scandal-plagued party out of government for the first time in 13 years in favor of Stephen Harper and his Conservatives.

The Conservatives fell far short of a majority, and will need to ally themselves to the Bloc Quebecois to govern effectively. Fortunately for them, they were able to take 10 seats in Quebec, where they polled at an unprecedented 25%.

Canada's "Red-Blue" divide is much starker than America's. In the Prairie provinces, Liberals polled at a microscopic 19%, and in the previous election (which they won) the figure was merely 25%. If Canada had an electoral college system like ours, it is doubtful that any province could be contested in a reasonably close election.

Full details of the results are here.

Hear, Hear

Global Review isn't the only place that worries about the morphing of evangelicism into a political movement. Charles Marsh of UVA writes in NYTimes today about his concerns with evangelical support for the Iraq War today.

I'm off to NYC for the weekend myself, to visit Hope, slap Johnny Damon upside the head, and in general enjoy the City that Never Sleeps.