O Tempora, O Mores! (December, 1999)

More Good News From Europe

In the wake of Jörg Haider’s success in Austria, an anti-immigration party has scored an upset election victory in Switzerland. The Swiss People’s Party or SVP went from fourth to second place in the legislative lower house, with 44 seats to the Social Democrats’ 51. It is now demanding an expanded role in the coalition government, but the full extent of its bargaining power will not be clear until run-off elections for the upper house, which have yet to be held. The SVP campaigned with posters that showed a dark-skinned man tearing up a Swiss flag, and called for an end to immigration and liberal asylum laws. One in five residents is now a foreigner. The SVP also promised to keep Switzerland out of the European Union. (Michael Shields, Anti-immigrant Stance Wins Big for Swiss Party, Washington Times, Oct. 25, 1999, p. A18. Michael Shields, Swiss SVP Renews Call for Extra Cabinet Seat, Reuters, Oct. 25.)

Diversity is Our Strength

A fight between a black and Hispanic inmate at Fort Grant State Prison in Arizona escalated into a two-hour riot when 200 Hispanics responded by throwing rocks at 80 blacks. Inmates armed themselves with long-handled mops and brooms, while prison guards cleared out for their own protection. The outnumbered blacks retreated into the prison yard security office but the Hispanics set it on fire. Prison guards came back and rescued the blacks but it took Tactical Support Units from four different prisons to quell the riot. Eighty inmates were injured, none seriously. The minimum-security jail was expected to be under lock-down indefinitely. (Racial Fight Sparks Riot at Fort Grant Prison, Arizona Star, October 14, 1999.)

On October 21, 200 to 400 Mexican and Armenian students mixed it up in a lunch-time free-for-all at Grant High School that had to be stopped by helmeted police. There were differing reports of the cause. According to one version, fighting started when a Hispanic girl and an Armenian girl attacked each other in the cafeteria and ended up on the floor screaming. According to another, 20 or so Mexicans crossed the “invisible line” that divides Mexican and Armenian turf, and were promptly set upon by Armenians. In any case, hundreds of students immediately joined the fight, which injured 14 students and two teachers. A girl was arrested for concealing a knife in her bra and a boy was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon — a trash can. Police held about 40 students for questioning after the fight.

There has been long-standing tension between the two groups, and the school’s dean says similar fights have erupted at least once a year for the past ten years. School officials have tried “conflict resolution programs,” “cultural awareness classes,” “group mediation,” and “peer counseling,” but nothing seems to work. (Kristina Sauerwein, Ethnic Tension Blamed for Grant High Melee, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23, 1999. Jesse Hiestand, Armenians, Latinos Clash at Grant High, L.A. Daily News, Oct. 22, 1999.)

On Nov. 2, a school assembly that was supposed to promote racial understanding prompted a brawl between whites and Hispanics at Skyview High School in Nampa, Idaho. Comments made by motivational speaker Raina Beaver must have “touched some nerves,” said principal Ralph Kern. Mr. Kern had to call the police after about 20 white and Hispanic students started fighting. Race, says Mr. Kern, “is a bigger issue than this community is willing to admit.” (Kathleen Mortensen & Lucinda Dolittle, Parents Raise Questions Over Skyview Incident, Idaho Statesman, Nov. 4, 1999.)

Language Invasion

New York City is becoming a Spanish-speaking city. At 2.2 million, Hispanics are the largest minority, and one in five New Yorkers speaks Spanish at home. Half the residents of the Bronx are Hispanic. The relentless influx of Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, and now Mexicans has created a huge demand for Spanish language instruction. “Thirty years ago, we started training people to do business in Latin America or Spain,” said Richard Huarte, director of the New York office of Inlingua, a language school that specializes in corporate accounts. “Now people are learning Spanish to deal with people right here in New York.” Spanish is now the most popular language in Berlitz classes; last year for the first time it outstripped English to become the top language.

At Metropolitan Hospital in East Harlem, doctors started taking Spanish lessons two years ago, after a survey determined that 65 percent of the patients prefer to be spoken to in Spanish. The police department is about to offer Spanish courses to any of the 40,000 officers who want to learn. Forty percent of the city’s school children are Hispanic, and administrators are desperate for bilingual teachers. In the last two years they hired 70 teachers from Puerto Rico and 13 from Spain.

Half of all Catholic churchgoers are now Hispanic, and in the last five years the New York Archdiocese has brought in 150 priests and 80 nuns from Latin America and Spain. “We’ve had priests who suddenly realized one day that they were preaching to a group of people who did not understand the sermons,” says Martín Poblete, permanent adviser to the archdiocese on Hispanic affairs.

Forward-looking Anglo mothers who do not, themselves, speak Spanish are making sure their children will be prepared for the future. “I don’t want my child to lag behind,” says Linda Hughes, who lives in Brooklyn, and commutes an hour each way to take her 3-year-old son, Lucas, to Spanish lessons once a week in Manhattan. (Mirta Ojita, To Talk Like New York, Sign Up for Spanish, New York Times, Oct. 18, 1999.)

Protection With Teeth

South Africans have grown so tired of rampant crime and lax law enforcement that citizens have begun to take matters into their own hands. A number of vigilante groups have sprung up, the best-known of which is called Mapogo a Mathamaga. The organization, whose name is from a Sotho saying, “When a leopard faces a tiger it becomes a tiger itself,” was established in 1996 by John Magolego.

In a two month period, criminals killed eight people in his impoverished neighborhood in Northern Province but the police took little interest. The last straw was the killing of an 80-year-old man who was beaten to death and his genitals sliced off for use in black magic. Mr. Magolego and a group of enraged citizens found the killer, held a trial, and executed him.

Mapogo, as the group is called, has now grown from a local organization of 100 members to 90 well-organized branches with 35,000 members. It does not kill or maim; it dispenses merciless floggings on the bare buttocks and sometimes dangles screaming miscreants over crocodile pools. “Criminals must feel pain,” explains Mr. Magolego. “They must be afraid of punishment. That is the African style.” It has been a very effective style. “These criminals know that if they cross us, we will work on their buttocks. They come to understand that we will inflict pain on their bodies if they do not use their ears.” (When Justice Fails, Aida Parker Newsletter (South Africa), July, 1999, p. 7.)

Protection For a Fee

South Africa has what is probably the highest rape rate in the world. In 1998 there were 115.8 reported rapes per 100,000 people (and many unreported) compared with 34.1 rapes per 100,000 in the United States. South Africans now get almost daily accounts of rapes including “jack-rollings” in which a mob seals off an entire street or building and gang-rapes every woman it can catch. South African men think they are more or less entitled to a woman’s favors. A survey found that 12 percent of teenage boys admitted to having forced themselves on someone, and half said that a girl who says no really means yes. Thirty-one percent of boys who knew a rape victim said she had been asking for it. One in three Johannesburg schoolgirls said they had been raped but only one in eight realized it was illegal.

Since about 13 percent of South African adults are infected with AIDS, the attacks can be a death sentence. Some men rape women in the hope of spreading the disease, and others rape children in the belief that sex with a virgin cures it. Cape Town’s Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital reports about 10 cases of child rape every week; recently a six-month-old baby was raped to death. Only one in 400 rapes leads to a conviction.

There has been something of an anti-rape campaign, which was to include a commercial by actress Charlize Theron. In it, she says:

‘People often ask me what the men are like in South Africa. Well, consider that more women are raped in South Africa than any other country in the world. That one out of three women will be raped in their lifetime in South Africa . . . It’s not that easy to say what men in South Africa are like, because there seem to be so few out there.’ The Advertising Standards Authority banned the ad because it discriminated against men.

It is into this market that CGU Insurance, Ltd. has introduced rape insurance — the first offered anywhere in the world. For about $4 a month, the policy will cover psychological and medical treatment, as well as the expensive anti-AIDS drugs not offered by government health services. (Andrew Maykuth, In Rape-Scarred Nation, an Insurance Plan, Philadelphia Inquirer, October 16, 1999, p. A1.)

Americans Grovel

The United States government has broken ground for a national memorial atoning for the relocation of Japanese during the Second World War. The memorial is located in a prime location in Washington, DC, less than half a mile north of the Capitol. It will consist of a curving marble wall listing the names of ten relocation centers and the names of 800 Japanese-Americans who died in combat during the war. The centerpiece will be a 14-foot-high bronze statue of two cranes struggling to break free from chains and barbed wire. Cranes are a Japanese symbol of good fortune. At the ground-breaking, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii said, “The story of the Japanese Americans is one we must never forget. Yesterday, the Japanese were the targets of racism. Tomorrow it could happen to another group.” (Eddie Evans, U.S. Breaks Ground on Japanese American Memorial, Reuters, Oct. 22, 1999.)

The Japanese were, of course, relocated because of nationality, not race. Chinese and Koreans were not relocated. Moreover, the Japanese were not interned, as is commonly claimed. They were excluded from certain parts of the Western United States, and the camps were free accommodation provided to people who did not have any other place to go. Residents were free to leave them so long as they did not return to the exclusion zone.

Slowly the facts are even beginning to emerge about the treatment of other Americans during the war. Here are excerpts from a story that appeared recently in the San Deigo Union Tribune:

While the wartime treatment of people of Japanese ancestry has been well-documented — they have received a public apology and a $1.2 billion reparations bill was passed in Congress — the discrimination against Italians in America is not widely known.

[M]ore than 500,000 Italian-Americans served in World War II. And 600,000 members of their families were subject to wartime restrictions. Of those affected, 52,000 were living in California. Ten thousand were forced into internment camps.

Almost 60 years later, many Italian-Americans — including former Boston Red Sox star Dominic DiMaggio — are pushing Congress to order the release of classified papers documenting the campaign against their parents. (Dong-Phuong Nguyen, ‘It Wasn’t Right,’ San Diego Union Tribune, Nov. 7, 1999.)

Perhaps some day, the generic press will discover what happened to German-Americans. (For more information on relocation camps and the treatment of European enemy aliens during the war, see “Unlucky to be White,” AR, Jan. 1999.)

Canadians Grovel

Canada has been piously resurrecting ancient treaties with Indian tribes and also wreaking havoc on established commercial practices. In September, for example, the Supreme Court decided that on the basis of a 1760 treaty Micmac Indians have the right to fish in the Atlantic and in eastern Canada out of season and without a license. White fishermen, some of whom had paid the equivalent of C$200,000 were furious. (Canada was a colony in 1760. One wonders who the parties to the treaty were?) The Micmac also have unlimited rights to make a living from “gathering,” so they can also get into the forestry business without permits or red tape.

A 1997 Supreme Court decision held that Indians have priority rights to Canadian natural resources, and must be compensated if anyone else exploits them. The government is now negotiating a C$490 million payoff to just one British Columbia tribe, the Nisga. One accounting company has calculated that the province of British Columbia alone will end up shelling out C$40 to 50 billion to Indians. There are only 700,000 Indians in the whole country, so C$40 billion shared among them equally is more than C$57,000 per Indian.

Apparently it takes a non-white to complain about this. Gurmant Grewal, an immigrant from India and a Reform Party MP, says: “No longer will hard work be the determining factor whether one can make a living in forestry, fishing or mining. Success will be based on race.” (Randall Palmer, Generous Rulings for Canada’s Natives Spur Backlash, Reuters, Oct. 24, 1999.)

More Profiling

Spanish police have circulated a letter to jewelry store owners warning them of a rash of robberies by South Americans, advising that “whenever possible don’t let them into the premises close to midday or evening closing times.” It also urges jewelers to notify the police if they learn of a South American, without a job, who moves into the area. Something called the Movement Against Intolerance immediately flew into a fury and the opposition Socialist Party demanded an “explanation” from the Interior Minister. An unruffled police spokesman explained that “out of 100 violent robberies in the (jewelry) sector over the past year, 90 percent have been carried out by individuals from Colombia and Chile.” (AP, Spanish Cops Criticized for Letter, Sept. 11, 1999.)

Indian Givers

Until the 1965 change in immigration laws, very few Indians from Asia lived in the United States. Now there are 1.4 million and they have the highest average household income of any Asian group — $60,903 — beating out even the Japanese and Chinese. Indians are increasingly turning their numbers and wealth into political power. Last summer, when India and Pakistan were skirmishing in Kashmir, Indian-American pressure helped tilt the U.S. government against the Pakistanis. In 1998, when Pakistan and India both exploded nuclear devices, Indians mobilized to explain to Congress why India needs the bomb.

Indians have discovered that money talks, and they have bought access to officials at all levels. At a single event in 1996, Indian business executives reportedly raised $400,000 for President Clinton. The Congressional India Caucus, founded in 1993, now has 115 members and has succeeded at least twice this year in blocking legislation that would have reduced foreign aid for India. In most cases, Indian-Americans work closely with the Indian embassy to advance national interests. This raises eyebrows among the old-fashioned. “We don’t want Indian Americans to be perceived as Indian agents,” explains Ambassador Naresh Chandra. “It’s a delicate line.”

According to the Washington Post, Indian-Americans have modeled their efforts on those of American Jews and hope eventually to rival them in power and influence. (John Lancaster, Activism Boosts India’s Fortunes, Washington Post, Oct. 9, 1999, p. A1.)

What’s Next?

As the country gets more diverse, actionable forms of discrimination multiply. Shazad Khaligh is a Muslim immigrant from Iran who worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 11 years until 1997. For the last three years, her supervisor was another Muslim by the name of Fred Hadaegh. Miss Khaligh now claims that Mr. Hadaegh thwarted her career, saying that Muslim women do not need education and should not work. She says he threatened to fire her and discouraged her from submitting papers at scientific conferences. Miss Khaligh is suing for both sex and religious discrimination. (Cassandra Stern, Case at NASA’s Lab Alleges Anti-Female Bias by Muslim, Washington Post, Aug. 24, 1999, p. A2.)

Ivy League Idiocy

Cindy Schiller is a student at Columbia University who has several times donated her eggs to childless couples. She thinks it’s a nice thing to do and she also likes the money she earns, but is bothered by the politics of it. “It’s the fact that I’m helping a white supremacist system at work,” she says. “People are getting these fair, blue-eyed children, and that does bother me philosophically.” She thinks it would be “really cool,” to donate to a homosexual couple rather than to upper-middle class white women who are the typical recipients. (Rebecca Mead, Eggs for Sale, New Yorker, August 9, 1999, quoted in Procreation Politics, Washington Times, Aug. 10, 1999, p. A2.)

Going to the Dogs

Dog feces are a serious problem in Mexico City, where there are two million pets and one million strays. They deposit more than 350 tons of waste every day and owners rarely clean up after their pets. “It dries and then it flies into the air. Then I breathe it and you breath it,” says Laura Elena Herrejon of the Pro-Neighbors Movement, which is working to stop the problem. Particles of dried waste also contaminate food served from numerous outdoor taco stands.

Officials are starting a major campaign to enforce laws that require owners to collect dog waste. There are fliers warning of the health risks of “fecalismo,” and banners in parks reading, “Neighbor! . . . you could be fined up to 344 pesos and 50 cents ($35) or jailed for between six and 12 hours, if you fail to pick up your pets’ feces.” (Susan Ferriss, Dog Waste Matters in Mexico City, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 7, 1999, p. B2.)

Third World Meets First

In the Washington, DC, suburbs Hispanics are considerably more likely than others to die in fatal pedestrian accidents. Many come from third-world boondocks with few cars, and cannot cope with American traffic. Many also apparently walk around drunk. In Montgomery and Prince George’s, the Maryland counties bordering the district, Hispanics are eight percent of the population but account for 21 percent of the pedestrian fatalities. In Fairfax, the Virginia county, they are likewise eight percent of the population but account for 23 percent of fatalities. Hispanic victims are also more likely than other pedestrians to have high levels of blood alcohol.

The federal government has decided to solve the problem. It has a $200,000 contract with a DC communications company to produce short video melodramas in Spanish that teach traffic safety. They are full of steamy intrigue, jealousy, and betrayal, just like the telenovelas to which many Hispanics are addicted, but the plots turn on traffic accidents. In one story, for example, the hero is hit and killed on his way to a cafe for a tryst with his hot, new, blond love interest. (Sylvia Moreno & Alan Sipress, Fatalities Higher for Latino Pedestrians, Washington Post, Aug. 27, 1999, p. A1.)

Telenovela notwithstanding, the Hispanic pedestrian problem is likely to get worse. The Mexican government recently concluded that the country is so unpleasant to live in that eight million Mexicans will probably try to go to the United States during the next 20 years — as many as are here already. (Massive Mexican Emigration Predicted, Washington Post, Aug. 27, 1999, p. A20.)

Good Wall, Good Neighbors

The Czech city of Usti nad Labem has built a seven-foot-high wall down an entire city block, separating Gypsy apartments from homeowners on the other side of the street. The Czechs had complained about rats, garbage, and noise from the apartments, which are filled with 150 Gypsies who were thrown out of ordinary housing because they haven’t paid rent. Gypsies blocked earlier attempts to put up the wall, but workers returned with police protection and built it in a single night. The usual people have whooped about “racism,” but the Usti city authorities refuse to be intimidated.

The Czech government worries about the wall because the Czech Republic is applying for membership in the European Union and hopes to be admitted by 2003. The European Commission has said the Czechs must improve things for their 300,000 gypsies through “efforts to combat discriminatory attitudes.” EU Commission President Romano Prodi has hinted that the wall could be enough, all by itself, to keep the Czech Republic out of the EU. The Prague government has ordered the city to tear down the wall but so far, Usti is standing by its wall, which the city claims is strictly a local matter. (Petr Josek, Czechs Complete Segregation Wall With Police Help, Reuters, Oct. 13, 1999. Jan Lopatka, Czechs Still See 2003 EU Entry, But Walls Remain, Reuters, Oct. 15, 1999.)

Tainted Yanqui Food

In October, heavy rains, floods, and mudslides in Mexico killed 381 people and left 200,000 without shelter. People in the Mexican state of Baja California, which was not affected, donated thousands of pounds of non-perishable food to the state’s Civil Protection Office, to be used for disaster relief. The federal government refused to accept much of it — cans of soup, bags of noodles, spam — because it was made in the United States. The government had made a point of declining foreign assistance, and rejected the American food, claiming it had not gone through proper import procedures. (Sandra Dibble, U.S-Made Donations to Flood Victims are Refused, San Diego Union Tribune, Oct. 16, 1999.)

Just Another Lynching

On October 15th, white police in Charleston, SC, arrested a black after shots were fired outside a school dance at North Charleston High School. Several people in the crowd were heard to say “Yeah, we’re going to get us a white boy.” Early the next morning more than a dozen blacks attacked Troy Knapp, 35, and Gary Thornburg, 34, as they rode bicycles near the school. They beat both men — one into a coma — and stole their bicycles. The violence stopped only when a dog from a nearby house broke his chain, ran up to the mêlée, and started snarling at the attackers.

Police have arrested seven people, including five juveniles, in connection with the attack and have charged them with second-degree lynching, or mob violence. All the suspects were at the dance the night before, but police insist that race had nothing to do with the attack. (Herb Frazier, Police Charge Seven Suspects in North Charleston Beating, Post and Courier (Charleston), Oct. 19, 1999.)

Diversity Unpopular in Greece

Until the early 1990s, there were practically no immigrants in Greece, but there are now an estimated 650,000 illegals. This is too many for 23-year-old Pandelis Kazakos, a security guard at a television station, who has confessed to killing foreigners. On October 19th and 22nd he went on shooting sprees, in which he killed an Iraqi and a Georgian, and wounded seven other immigrants. In response, the Greek government urged citizens to condemn and isolate “racists.” (AP, Greek Man Admits Killing Immigrants, Oct. 22, 1999.)

Night Vision Racists

Leonard Chappell is president of the Charlotte County, Florida, chapter of the NAACP. On October 18, a white police officer clocked him going nearly 20 miles per hour over the speed limit and gave him a ticket. Mr. Chappell immediately accused the officer and the department of “racial profiling,” and the department duly investigated. Police authorities examined video records of the stop and found that the white officer had behaved appropriately in the face of abuse from Mr. Chappell. As for racial profiling, it was impossible for the officer to know who was in the car before he stopped it — at 1:30 in the morning. (Chad Binette, Local NAACP Leader Tries to Use Racial Profiling to Beat Speeding Ticket, but Video Tells the Tale, Herald Tribune (Sarasota), Oct. 27, 1999.)

Actions Speak Louder

William Clinton and his wife have long trumpeted the benefits of “diversity,” and “inclusion.” In his second inaugural address, for example, Mr. Clinton claimed that “our rich heritage of racial, religious and political diversity will be a Godsend in the 21st century.” At a Democratic fund-raiser, Mrs. Clinton wanted to know: “Do we wish to live in a society divided by income, race, or religion or do we attempt to build a community and honor the principle of inclusion?” The Clintons seem somehow to have forgotten these sentiments when they chose their new home in Chappaqua, New York. Their zip code, 10514, is 93.69 percent white, 0.72 percent black, and 1.64 percent Hispanic. Perhaps the 5.4 percent who are Asian will provide them with sufficient diversity. The median household income is $110,000, with 56 percent earning more than $100,000. (Bob McManus, Westchester County, 10514, New York Post, Sept. 9, 1999, p. 27.)

More Wretched Refuse

On October 16, more than 5,000 protesters, including thousands of illegal immigrants, demonstrated in Washington for amnesty. The vast majority were Hispanics, but organizers boasted they had attracted illegals from four continents. Fakhral Alam general secretary of the Bangladesh Society of New York said there are about 100,000 illegal Bangladeshis in the United States. Referring to the 1986 law that amnestied three million illegals, he said, “it’s time for another amnesty. These people aren’t going back anyway. They’re staying.” (Philip Dan, Demonstration Presses for Immigration Rule Change, Washington Post, Oct. 17, 1999, p. C5.)

Criminal Heads South

The morning of October 24, a white couple and their three children ages two, three, and seven were asleep in their home in Modesto, California. A man thought to have been Pedro Aguirre, a Mexican national, entered the house and bludgeoned the man, almost killing him and possibly leaving him brain damaged. He beat the wife nearly to death and then raped her, while the horrified children looked on. He took the three-year-old girl outside the house and raped her, too, whereupon he was seized with nostalgia for his homeland.

Mexico essentially refuses to extradite criminals to the United States. The government requires much bureaucratic paper shuffling before it will even arrest a suspect wanted for a crime in a foreign country, and it then takes six months to a year before he is tried. Many Mexicans who commit crimes in the United States prefer to take their chances with lackadaisical Mexican law enforcement. (Crystal Carreon, Family Stunned by Attack, Modesto Bee, Oct. 29, 1999.)

God Save the Queen

On November 5, Australians voted in a referendum to keep the Queen of England as head of state rather than become a republic. In an affirmation of the country’s European heritage, Australians voted approximately 55 percent to 45 percent to remain Her Majesty’s subjects. (Rohan Sullivan, Queen Victorious in Australian Vote, Washington Post, Nov. 7, 1999, p. A29.)

Race undoubtedly influenced the vote. In the 1950s, 95 percent of Australians were of British or Irish descent, and until the mid-1970s, a “White Australia” policy kept the country European. There was never a question of rejecting the monarchy. Since then there has been a great deal of non-white immigration, mainly from Asia, and before the vote, immigrants were explaining why they wanted to dump the Queen. “The Monarchy is simply not relevant to modern Australia,” said Natasha Stott Despoja, who is a Senator and member of the campaign for a “Yes” vote. A Jason Yat Sen Li complained that “the monarchy no longer represents Australian values such as diversity,” and insisted that “any Australian — from whatever background — should have the opportunity to become our head of state.” (David Grossman, Race Plays Its Card in Republic Vote, BBC On-Line, Nov. 3, 1999.) There was also much jabber to the effect that a vote for the Queen might be interpreted in Asian countries as insufficient identification with Asia. If Australia continues to accept large numbers of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants, subsequent referenda are likely to go the other way.

Although this was scarcely reported in the media, a proposed preamble to the Australian constitution was also voted down. The text was full of multi-culti bumf such as:

[We are] proud that our national unity has been forged by Australians from many ancestries; . . . [we are] honouring Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, the nation’s first people, for their deep kinship with their lands and for their ancient and continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country; [and we are] recognising the nation-building contribution of generations of immigrants; . . .

Perhaps journalists take this sort of thing so much for granted they don’t think it worth reporting. Australians were not fooled.

Good Germans, All

In May, Germany finalized a controversial overhaul of its citizenship laws, which makes it much easier for non-Germans to become citizens. Anyone born in Germany will automatically be a citizen, and naturalization will be much easier for longtime residents. Children will be permitted dual citizenship until age 23, at which time they must choose a single nationality. The new law takes effect January 1, and the government is promoting it with a campaign of billboards, brochures, and newspaper ads. Currently there are about 7.3 million resident aliens — 10 percent of the population — and one million are expected to become Germans next year. (Germany Expects 1M New Citizens, Las Vegas Sun, October 25, 1999.)

The Abridged Rushton

J. Philippe Rushton has just published an abridged edition of his brilliant analysis of racial differences, Race, Evolution, and Behavior. The new book is a 100-page, pocket-sized version that explains the essentials of r-K theory and outlines the scientific basis for Prof. Rushton’s view that Asians, whites, and blacks differ in ways that consistently fit evolutionary and behavioral patterns. The new version is written in clear, straightforward language and includes charts and figures. The abridged edition sells for $5.95, with steep discounts for bulk orders. For example, 25 copies would cost only $2.00 each. Transaction Publishers, which brought out both editions of Race, Evolution, and Behavior, is taking orders, toll-free, at (888) 999-6778.

Reasons to Emigrate?

Inter-American Dialogue, a policy analysis center whose members include former President Jimmy Carter and five former Latin American Presidents, has issued a grim report on prospects for Latin America. Among its findings:

• Poverty has increased for the second decade in a row, “leaving most Latin Americans poorer in 2000 than they were in 1980.”
• “[A]verage growth will not reach 3 percent per year, substantially below the 6 percent the World Bank estimates is necessary to reduce poverty in the region.”
• Judicial systems, legislatures, and political parties remain “weak and discredited in many countries and scarcely function in some.”
• “Corruption is widespread.”
• “[A] disturbing number of countries, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Jamaica, will have a lower per capita income in 2000 than they had 10 years earlier.” (Gloomy Outlook for Latin America, AP, November 4, 1999.)

Out of Iberia

The traditional theory about the peopling of the Americas is that about 13,500 years ago, Asians trotted across an ancient land bridge that joined what are now Siberia and Alaska. They made stone projectiles of a distinctive kind called Clovis points. Now two prominent archeologists have pointed out the uncanny similarity between Clovis artifacts and older materials from what is called the Solutrean culture, found on the Iberian peninsula. Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian, and independent researcher Bruce Bradley point out that the two types of projectiles are virtually indistinguishable, and that Solutrean finds in Europe date back more than 18,000 years. In fact, there are no Clovis features not found in Solutrean materials. The two men therefore conclude that Europeans crossed the Atlantic and settled North and perhaps even South America well before the Asian land bridge was free of ice and passable.

At present there is only speculation about how Early Europeans could have made the voyage. Judging from the kind of craft used by primitive peoples in Arctic regions, it is not farfetched to suggest that Solutreans may have sailed in skin boats. With favorable winds and currents they might have managed the voyage in three weeks. (Joseph Verrengia, First Americans from Europe? AP, Nov. 3, 1999.)

The Yahoos Never Rest

There was the usual braying about “racism” when the Senate rejected the nomination of Ronnie White for the U.S. District Court. Mr. White, currently on the Missouri Supreme Court, is black. Mr. White is also so soft on the death penalty that 77 of the 114 Sheriffs in Missouri urged the Senate to reject Mr. White. The National Sheriff’s Association recommended thumbs down, too. Back in his home state, Mr. White’s hostility toward the death penalty is well known. In one case a man stalked and slaughtered a sheriff, two sheriff’s deputies, and a sheriff’s wife. He got the death penalty, but when the case came to the state supreme court the only judge to oppose carrying out the sentence was Ronnie White. In another case, a man raped and then beat a woman to death with a lead pipe, and once again Mr. White was the only judge who wanted to spare him. His reason was that the trial judge had switched political parties and was now opposed to affirmative action. That, said Mr. White, meant the judge was a bigot.

President Clinton claims that non-white and female nominees for judgeships take longer to confirm than white men. That is because the women and minorities he appoints are, by choice, lefties with dubious records. When Mr. Clinton appoints people pleasing to a Republican-controlled Senate, they breeze through without regard to race or sex. (Thomas Jipping, Race Over Record, Free Congress Commentary, Nov. 3, 1999.)