Ruminations

* The Prague conference must have been the greatest gathering of dissidents and freedom fighters since, well perhaps since the Continental Congress that signed the Declaration of Independence.

They arrived at a set of points, evidently in remarkably short time, with remarkably little contention. Perhaps it’s because the ethical issues are in fact for once, quite simple and clear.

They addressed this at somewhat greater length, but at bottom it starts with: don’t lie about tyrannies, call them what they are, name them and shame them.

Heroes of liberty who have done hard time in terrible conditions, some of whom were there, others of whom were represented by friends and relatives, have said time and again that what sustains them in captivity, and through prolonged torture is the knowledge that somewhere someone knows that they are being wronged.

* Paris Hilton is an Upper Class Twit, and a Trust Fund Idiot. Though nice enough to look at, there is something vacuous about her face, and she only has to open her mouth to make a man indifferent to her looks.

Nonetheless the outpouring of scorn and glee at her re-imprisonment is a bit unnerving. TV news types were openly jubilant at the sight of her weeping and crying for her mother as the judge sent her back to jail.

Perhaps she’s finding out what Alcibiades did all those centuries ago: that the democracy loves to raise its idols high – but equally loves to dash them low.

The same TV personalities who covered this with such glee would pause from time to time and wonder, why the heck are we doing this? What is it about this no-talent, famous-for-being-famous spoiled brat that grabs and holds our attention?

Well I’ll tell you, I think there’s something great about all this. We’re having a much-needed conversation about the way the law operates in practice, about the “best justice money can buy”. About how the rich are treated by the law as opposed to the rest of us – and it’s centered around a trivial case in which no one died.

This is the conversation we didn’t really have after the O.J. case. And we can have it without the O.J. race baggage.

Buck up Paris. That little vacation in jail will give you time to think (if you know how), and now you know what fame is worth.

* I can hardly believe what I’m hearing on the FOX business news. A business-news talking head has just openly said what I’ve speculated about for years.

On the question of whether we should buy oil from countries hostile to us, he said that we should use up all of the rest of the world’s oil before we tap into our own considerable reserves, whose exploitation is currently blocked by the environmental lobby.

About 20 years ago I wondered in a bull session whether somewhere in the higher policy circles that decision had already been made.

OK so maybe I’m paranoid. But am I paranoid enough.

* And speaking of oil, yesterday I saw a commercial for CITGO which is of course, the state oil company of Venezuela. It had a number of clips of tankers on the sea and some nice tropical scenery and a written line, “A plentiful supply of Venezuelan oil.” I wonder what the heck that means?