It turns out that Friday night, one or several of Denver's less-intelligent residents got the bright idea of painting swastikas on the large synagogue across the street from where I live. No pix, since reader Julia White alerted me to this after Shabbat, of course, when it was already dark.

This is a completely different issue from the church sign. There are no theological implications here for Christianity, nothing to be (mis)interpreted, and nothing for the Christian community as a whole to defend itself against. Even if only Jews show up to the 10:00 cleaning & show of solidatiry, nobody is going to think this reflects on anyone other than the morons with access to spray paint. The initial e-mailing came from a Middle-East study center at DU, so it'll be interesting to see how many Muslims don't show up.

I'm sure the gorillas didn't know this, but this is a particuarly appropriate week for something like this to happen. This Shabbat is known as Shabbat Zachor, or Shabbat of Remembrance. It coincides annually with Purim, the holiday celebrating the failure of a plot during the Persian exile to exterminate the Jews of that polity. You've heard the phrase, "Hang him high as Haman". Haman's the bad guy here, the Prime Minister to whom Mordecai won't bow down, so he takes it out on the whole Jewish population. It's not quite William Tell, although the Austrians would later reprise the role of Gessler/Haman. The Megillah, the Book of Esther, written about 2500 years ago, actually has Haman as a fairly convincing proto-anti-Semite. In any case, the plot fails, Haman and his sons end up of the wrong end of the gallows, and we get to celebrate.

During the Shabbat service each year, a section of the story of Amalek is read. Amalek was the nation who attacked the Jews on the way out of Egypt, attacking in the rear so as to target women, children, the old, the sick. God helps the Israelites defeat him in battle, and we are commanded to "never forget what he did, and to blot out his memory." In popular and Rabbinic memory, Amalek has become the symbolic representative of everyone who every plotted to destroy us, and Haman is reputed to be one of his descendents.

How appropriate, then, that we should be devoting tomorrow morning to literally blotting out swastikas, while remembering what happened when we didn't.

It's pretty common now for online newspapers to take context-sensitive advertising. Read a story about politics, and you get ads at the bottom of the story for the websites of currently-prominent presidential campaigns, and so on. Also, the ad titles are frequently truncated for space. Sometimes, the combination can be hilarious. Here, from the Wall Street Journal, are three ad headlines and their links:

Women's Pants at...

White Women's Pants:...

Trendy White Women...

And the article that summoned them up:

CASUAL SEX: We're not sure who is handling photos for the Yale Daily News this week, but next to a story on prostitution in its home town of New Haven, Conn., the Ivy paper offered belt-level close-ups of two women--one in half-unzipped hot-pants--only to explain that this was not typical of how New Haven's prostitutes dress. So what fashions do the ladies of the evening favor? According to the photo caption: "Despite popular stereotypes of prostitutes styled after vamped-up call-girls in hot-pants and over-the-knee boots, many New Haven sex workers dress casually in jeans, much like a typical college student."

And they thought Deep Blue was a threat to human predominance.

Suggested titles for our group project on India:

• India - Where Columbus Meant to Go
  
• India - Land of Ink
  
• India - Crown Jewel of the Empire
  
• India - Sri Lanka's Northern Neighbor
  
• India - Where There's Smoke, There's Pyre
  
• India - Cow Heaven
  
• India - Hey Dude! Where's My Job?
  
• India - Caste Out Your Dead Upon the Water
  

And I don't want to hear from anyone who's offended by this. India's a rising, confident country, who ought to be able to take a joke.

I can't remember the first time I saw The Dot and the Line, only that it's stayed with me for over 25 years. No wonder. I looked it up on IMDB, and it turns out that Chuck Jones directed it, Norton Juster (The Phantom Tollbooth) wrote it, Robert Morley narrated it, and it won an Oscar. At the time, the advertisement for the value of math impressed me more, but now, the more subtle, anti-hippie message (even though it was made in 1965), matters more.

The story is pretty simple. As the story opens, a dot (the girl) is dating a squiggle.

The line is jealous, jilted, spurned, and straight as a pin. When he learns to do this

And eventually this:

he wins the heart of the dot. One of the points was the beauty of geometry, but another was the need for structure and discipline to achieve anything. The squiggle had pretty much fulfilled his potential with his ball-of-twine impersonation. He wasn't really free, since he lacked imagination and structre. But the line is like a spirograph with Barry Bonds' connections.

This last quarter, I've felt more or less like the squiggle. Playing from behind a lot, and not focused enough to move forward very far. Blogging, didn't plan properly for the quarter, trying to bill enough hours. Next quarter, it's going to have to be the line.

Maybe. We'll know in 10-14 days. I think Governor Owens will be getting a lot of pressure from the national party to run. Rutt Bridges seems to be an attractive candidate, who's already established himself in the headlines as a "moderate." The Bighorn Institute is left-leaning, but not radical. His business experience makes him credible on fiscal issues, while his liberal social policy makes him appealing to the Democratic base. I don't believe these are reconcileable in the long run. That is, I believe that liberal social policy is more expensive to government. But I don't think it's an inconsistency that most people notice.

Owens was on Hugh Hewitt's show today, and when Hugh asked him what issues most Coloradoans cared about, he sounded for all the world like a candidate, focusing on foreign policy and shying away from environmental issues. Stay tuned.

For those of you who think of business school as the last bastion of conservatism on campus, unsullied by the Ideological Imperative of the Left's Long March through the departmental org chart, think again. While it's hard to stand up and claim that a high inventory ratio is a good thing, the softer classes are ripe for the sort of intellectual gerrymandering that leads to calls for and Academic Bill of Rights. Our Global Business class has had a substitute professor twice, and twice he's managed to assert, virtually without contradiction, the kind of gobbledygook that has turned the social science departments into ongoing ad campaigns for the Green party.

In the course of a case study discussion about multinationals doing business with unsavory governments, we learned that the best hope for determining and enforcing international norms for governmental behavior was for the UN to grow fangs, er, teeth. In a discussion during class breaks, I learned that many people would say that we have too much influence in the UN, which is really a democratic institution. Please see Powerline, Little Green Footballs, Instapundit, and Hugh Hewitt for commentary on this once-respectable point of view.

Tonight, our case study involved the appointment of host-country nationals (Americans) to expatriate posts. We were informed, in the course of two hours that:

• Companies appoint expatriate CFOs from racist mistrust of the host-country
  
• Women only account for 15% of expats because of discrimination
  
• Most corporations are "white-male, single-income" oriented
  

Let's take these one at a time, shall we? I was under the impression that most American companies appointed American CFOs because they wanted someone on the scene representing their interests. That, and the fact that positions involving a high level of trust are usually filled on the basis of relationships as much as on known technical competence. That, and the fact that many third-world countries have had, until yesterday, third-world standards of accounting and financial analysis. Of course, he offered no evidence that American companies were any more willing to trust Germans than they were to trust Japanese, two pick two countries with similar industrial and financial histories, but with different predominating skin colors and facial features.

I raised the point that a Wall Street Journal article dealing with the curious phenomenon of the Husband-as-Trailing-Spouse hadn't even hinted at discrimination as a reason for the minority of women expats. He actually had a hard copy of the article in his file, and didn't argue, especially when I pointed out (from memory) that the article had been written by a woman. Maybe women are less likely to have house-husbands. Maybe women are more likely to be anticipating families, so are less likely to be wedded to their careers. Shoot, I don't know. I do know that his fall-back position was to suggest that "more studies are needed." Dennis Prager, take note.

I don't even know what #3 means. Especially the "white" part. We're talking about dual-career families, the very notion of which is almost exclusively American and European. John Derbyshire has written a number of times about the backflips that companies do to avoid being labeled "racist" or "sexist." Now, companies, much more than governments, are pushing same-sex-partner benefits. Corporations are not inherently socially conservatives, and it's foolish to expect them to be so. Social conservatives need to get over their disappointments, and social liberals need to stop the stereotyping.

Business schools need to have a variety of views, too. But it's important that 1) people understand the nature of the beast, and 2) those views be adequately defended and debated, not shoved down the throats of evening students too tired to care, or day students too callow to know how to argue.

The American Kestrel has been doing yeoman work on the Venezuela situation. Chavez, as we all expected, is digging in his heels and preparing for a fight. How much of this couple had been avoided if Sen. Chris Dodd had allowed a vote on Otto Reich to State's top Latin American post is open to question. But letting the "go along to get along" careerists run the show certainly hasn't helped in an area where we need vigah in our diplomacy.

Via the Kestrel. A Jewish man in the Haifa region has apparently been off on a bombing campaign against local Arabs and their cars. The fact that he's been fairly inept doesn't make him any less a criminal or his bombs any less dangerous.

Note that Mr. Golan was arrested by the Israeli Police, an organization said to have ties to the Israeli government. Among the other anomalies: while Mr. Golan's father professed ignorance of his son's alleged crimes, he did not appear on television to tearfully tell the world how proud he was of his son's achievements. There are no plans to release him back into the community before a trial. Haifa has not seen street demonstrations in favor of Mr. Golan, nor are there any plans to rename schools, streets, or major harbor locations after him.

Most striking, "Northern region Police Chief Commander Yaacov Borovsky told reporters in Haifa on Thursday that it appears that motive behind the attacks was 'hatred of Arabs'." No excuses were offered, nor were we told that Mr. Golan's actions were a regrettable but understandable consequence of occupation. Or even of Arab murders of his friends and neighbors.

The Denver Post has a number of reactions to Sen. Campbell's announcement. Most of them, even from Democrats who ran against Campbell for one office or another, or were planning to run this fall, are measured, tempered, the sort of civilized stuff you like to see from elected officials. Rutt Bridges, who wanted Campbell's job when he thought he'd be running against Campbell, had this to say:

Senator Campbell has been a faithful public servant to the people of Colorado for 22 years and he should be proud of his distinguished career. Now is the time for Colorado to have a fresh face in Washington and I intend to be the next United States Senator from Colorado. I was ready to challenge Senator Campbell and I remain eager to challenge the Republican candidate, whomever that may be. I intend to run a strong, fair and clean campaign about the issues that matter to Colorado families.

Makes you like the guy, even you suspect you'll disagree with him about everything from gay marriage to where the sun sets in the evening. Rep. Mark Udall, who also thought about running for the Senate said:

We have been friends since I came to Congress in 1999 and have worked together on a number of projects for the people of the State of Colorado.
I thank Ben for his service and his friendship, and I look forward to talking to him about his plans for when he returns to Colorado.

Again, civil, decent, even human. Then there's this, from the State Party Chairman, Chris Gates:

It’s a beautiful day. I firmly believed this was a possible scenario. We absolutely presume the Republican candidate will be Bill Owens. We relish the thought of a campaign against Bill Owens.

Gee, thanks Chris for those heartfelt sentiments. You can hardly see Terry McAwful's lips move. This is exactly the kind of poison, the inability to think of anything outside of partisan political terms, then seeps down from above, when people like McAuliffe and the Clintons run the national party. I never intended to vote Democrat, and the state almost certainly isn't competitive at the presidential level. But now I've got a campaign to work on during August, before the Fall quarter starts.

Senator Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell, citing health concerns, has decided not to run for re-election after all. The state Democratic party chairman had been speculating along these lines for months, and Campbell's fundraising activity (and success) had been down, the campaign and the senator's office had continued to deny the rumors. Given that the state Republican party chairman had been silent, and the Republicans are now left without an obvious candidate for the office, one wonders if staff members from the Democrat-turned-Republican's office had been coordinating more closely with their old party than with their new one.

The immediate concern is with the effect on the Senate, as a presumably safe seat for the Republicans now turns into real race. The Democrats have been at it for a while, but the leaders seem to be a school board member from Colorado Springs and a University regent from CU. Although the latter may have some, er, credibility issues at this point. Certainly Gary Hart, if he was ever serious about trying for a comeback, has to be having third or fourth thoughts now. He would do well to look at what happened to Walter Mondale two years back. It's probably too late for a figure with any stature, like a Wellington Webb, to get into the race.

I have no idea whom the Republicans can turn to. This might be Bill Owens's chance to move up. Speculation had been that he would run for President in '08, but the separation from his wife was seen as a liability there. Given the tactful, dignified way the couple has handled the situation, Colorado voters may be more forgiving than a national audience would be. We've had a chance to get to know the Governor apart from his marital problems. The Lieutenant Governor doesn't seem to have any real gubernatorial ambitions, so leaving a state with a recovering economy in her hands might benefit State Treasurer Mike Coffman in '06. And it would give the governor eight years of national office, for a run in '12. Since he'd be up for re-election in '10, the timing looks auspicious.

Other than control of the Senate, there are probably no Presidential implications in this. Owens ran 13 points ahead of Allard in '02, and if President Bush really has to worry about Colorado come November, it's President Kerry, anyway. It's unlikely that coattails will help whomever the Republicans come up with, and it's inconceivable that the Democratic candidate is going to put Kerry over the top here.

Historically, the Church, and even large segments of say, Southern Baptist protestantism, haven't taken the now-more-common, nuanced view of the situation. Regardless of the fact that "deicide" is a problematic concept to begin with, from the 300s until about 1965, it wasn't uncommon for Jews to be the target of verbal abuse and physical violence for being "Christ-killers," and that whole original blood libel ("let his blood be upon us an on our children") sort of perpetuated that idea.

Recently, much of Christianity has come round to the idea that, in Jared's words, "blaming the Jews makes as much sense as blaming the Sioux." But it's only been about 40 years, and while great changes can happen in a generation or two, people are still skittish.

Overly so, in my view. America is not Europe. Europe's anti-Semitism was undoubtedly Christian in origin, even as it now is secular. America never had these problems, certainly not to the same extent. When people talk about Jews "being oppressed" in the South, I want to retch. Discriminated against, yes. Treated like a side-dish that hadn't been ordered, but it's almost time for the play and we really do need to get going, so let's not send it back this time, sure.

But "oppressed?" Oppressed brings to mind ghettos where the gates closed at nightfall. Tsarist Russia rampaging through the streets, or conscripting boys into the army to divest them of their lives or their religion or both. Being tossed out of countries wholesale (retail being heavily regulated), that sort of thing. Blacks were oppressed. Jews had a choice when they got off the boat in Baltimore to stop, turn right, or turn left. A lot of them turned left and made nice livings.

Let me now caveat all of what I just said. 1) Abe Foxman & the boys over at the Wiesenthal Center made a terrible blunder in terms of intellectual honesty by criticizing a film they hadn't seen, 2) I'm not about to make the same mistake, so I can't really criticize the film until I see it, 3) which I intend to do, in the company of a Jewish convert from Christianity who can translate for me, 4) there are enough reviews out now by Jews or non-believers that you can see what they might have found problematic, 5) it's only a movie, for crying out loud.

That said, movies are powerful. One of the networks (probably ABC now, since they pretty much own all pre-1970 content created in the world) still runs "Ten Commandments" every Passover. Ben-Hur also shows up every Easter. There are probably kids who are crestfallen to find out that Charlton Heston isn't Jewish. The Palestinians only wish they could come up with a movie as compelling as "Exodus," or even "Fiddler." (I know an Indian from East Africa with a family tradition of watching "Fiddler" every New Year's; they think it's their story, too.) And these movies don't have to be re-run on network television every year to be powerful. There's a small film called "Relentless," about the Israeli suffering at the hands of suicide bombers and terrorists, that's been shown in synagogues and almost nowhere else for the last few years on Tisha B'Av. It's very powerful, very moving, and is almost completely underground.

And if, 30 years from now, the movie is popular with church leaders, there's nothing inherent in it that keeps them from saying, "see what the Jewish mob did to Him? See how they rejected him? See why they and their descendents are worthy of our contempt and scorn?" It's not that people are going to fly out of the theaters looking for Jews to run over in the parking lot on the way to go burn down a shul. It's that, in the wrong hands, even a fine piece of film-making can be made to serve bad purposes.

My sense is that Christianity, especially in America, is not only well past that point, but moving further away. The most vocal Christians, the ones that are going to be around 40 years from now, are coming at it from Jared's point of view. (Although it's anyone's guess how the large Catholic influx from Mexico affects things.) I can't tell Christians what to think. But I can tell them that if they want their view of the world to prevail, they'll have to be responsible for the future of their churches, and the messages they teach.