Correspondence

...Munson claims that Pryce-Jones "returned to the Middle East many times" and used a "comprehensive reading of Arab literature" in preparing his book...

...The black man holding the spear comes straight out of early twentieth-century racist comic-book iconography...

...But now we must take our cruise missiles and retarget them at college social science departments and public television stations...

...Meanwhile, to tide us over until November, here's a nice, fat, bum-onthe-plush type of enemy . . . Lorimar Studios These purveyors of technicolor sewage bought the old MGM lot where the various buildings were named after great movie stars of yore...

...CORRESPONDENCE The Allyn Conwell Syndrome I found Steven C. Munson's review of David Pryce-Jones's The Closed Circle An Interpretation of the Arabs (TAS, December 1989) sickening beyond description...

...One can guess at Pryce-Jones's motives for writing this piece of trash and Munson's for giving it a glowing review...

...these charts reveal starkly how their economic system has failed...

...Considerations of "face" are important in the Arab business world, as the idiot British doctor whose version of events Pryce-Jones uncritically accepts should have known...

...M. Campbell Cohasset, Massachusetts Correspondence Update Having spent many years in publishing (once editorial director of Bantam Books), I was interested in Alex Heard's criticism of Brat-Packery (TAS, October 1989) throughout the publishing world and turned to S. W. Mason's clearly angry letter with anticipation (Correspondence, TAS, December 1989...

...Huffington's critics The Beatles The French Revolution (the first totalitarian one) All KGB agents, except traitors Robert Kennedy Boris Yeltsin —Vesselin Petkoff, Sofia, Bulgaria Let Non-Comrade Petkoff be an inspiration to us all...

...And may your video rights be pirated besides...

...I think, that in The New Enemies List can exist very well: F. D. Roosevelt (gifting totalitarianism to Eastern Europe) Oliver Stown (I am not sure, I've written his name correctly)—the movie maker, together with Sheens Pablo Picasso and all who don't know their millions and pay them for his art Mrs...

...P J. O'Rourke Washington, D.C...

...Tim Fennell Los Altos, California Bad Cover I won't turn a blind eye to the faults of the United Nations...

...50 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1990...

...It's much easier to understand the escalating events of the last few [months] with his analytical perspective of Communism's history...

...3. In politics, the Arab leader advances through bribery and acts of violence, killing or exiling the current power-holder...

...First, I want to say, that TAS is the best western magazine I can read into the central library in Sofia—and I can read Commentary (Jewish, but very good), New Republic (vice-president's favorite one), Nation (the great enemy of all Soviet dissidents), Policy Review, Partizan Review, New Yorker, Wilson Quarterly, San Francisco Review of Books, Dissent and so on...

...In Pakistan, the divorce rate in "love marriages" is substantially higher than in arranged marriages...

...I readily admit that Gloria Steinem would stronglycondemn the status of women in conservative Arab society, but this does not alarm me as much as it seems to alarm Messrs...

...Anybody who permanently smeared the memory of Robert F. Kennedy and temporarily kept Roy Cohn out of the discotheques can't have been all bad...

...He then looks "beyond his borders for opportunities to mount his next power-challenge," presumably with the saintly state of Israel as a target...

...If so, he wasted his time and money...

...You might think about making reprints available...

...I would like to offer the following observations on some of his points: 1. Arab families are "in the hands of an undisputed autocrat who judges himself fit to assess and extend the collective interest...

...What can you possibly gain by giving such gratuitous offense...

...Curtis LeMay Memorial Chair at The American Spectator Center for Anti-Communist Studies...

...Lorimar promptly changed the name of the Robert Taylor Building...

...Shall the Berlin Wall tumble and a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives stand...

...Write to: The New Enemies List The American Spectator P. O. Box 10448 Arlington, Virginia 22210-1448 Send your blacklists as soon as possible and by no means later than capitalism's ersatz May Day, September 3, or your victims will have to wait until 1991 for public execration...

...other nations...

...In one of their Hunger Strike directives, for example, the students wrote: "What we[people of China] need is not a perfect savior but a good democratic system...

...It is a glorious thing to watch the Warsaw Pact come to bits, yes...

...The book includes several charts comparing per capita production of various products by the USSR vs...

...Micah Morrison 447 7th Ave., 3C Brooklyn, NY 11215 CONGRATULATIONS...

...I can think of no better antidote to this kind of wishful thinking than David Pryce-Jones's penetrating, compassionate, and disinterested analysis of Arab life...

...We choose November to commemorate the November 14 birthday of that misunderstood and slightly whoozled genius Senator Joe...

...I have little doubt that he denounced his administrator at foghorn volume before the assembled staff and was astonished when the man reacted irrationally...

...They did not learn that hard lesson in any classroom...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1990 9 CORRESPONDENCE (continued from page 9) status...

...Lessons in Democracy I have to say it again: the most vigorous, sinewy, relevant, humorous writing around is published in The American Spectator...

...The book June 4 contains many interesting documents which I am unable to mention for lack of space...

...Every nomination for infamy sent to us will see print in the November 1990 issue of TAS and, if might and right do not fail us, in each November issue of TAS thereafter...

...O'Rourke, I can imagine Your surprise, when You would reading, that Bulgarian (Bulgaria is a totalitarian country), 25 years old, wants to add some names to Your list...

...Two of the subscriptions have since merged into one when Steve and Rachel tied the knot last summer...

...A part of it reads "one of the steps leading to the capitol building rests 5,280 feet above sea level . . ." The words "one of the steps" should be stricken and the words "the sixteenth step" should be inserted in place thereof...

...Munson and Pryce-Jones...

...Taylor had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee and testified against those leftover lefties of small note, the "Hollywood Ten...

...Michigan Author's Query For a book about the Yellowstone fires of 1988, I would appreciate hearing from anyone with first-hand information, including journals, letters, fire-crew reports, audio and video tapes, personal anecdotes, and any generally illuminating cussedness...

...The opinions and mythology presented in Munson's review could have been gathered from any beery contract worker ranting and whining in a Bangkok bar about the deficiencies of the "sand niggers" and the injustices that he suffered at their hands...

...Bill's solitary subscription to TAS blossomed into four when we all graduated in 1986 and went on to separate graduate schools...

...T o that end the TAS New Enemies List will continue...

...It must be refreshing for Israel's partisans, vexed with the public relations problem of the intifada and the declining value of the Zionist state as a strategic asset, to read that Arabs are subhuman savages who can be beaten and killed without qualms...

...Each day when, that original victim of socialism in our United States, the Postman, arrives (late) with his subsidized burden, we receive fresh candidates for the oubliette...

...Because the admirable and upstanding Mr...

...He might even rise to become the house expert on Arabs and other "untermenschen...

...No dishonor attaches to such primary transactions as selling short weight, deceiving anyone about quality, quantity or kinds of goods, cheating at gambling, and bearing false witness...

...Pryce-Jones seems to have included a variety of fantastic stories about Arab sexual practices and perversions in his book, which suggests a morbid intereston his part in these matters...

...Most shockingly, Arabs "promote and protect their own kind" in business dealings...

...prepared his baste with a bit too much envy...

...I just wanted you to know the circumstances for my subscription lapse, and not to take it personally...

...How could we explain to our grandchildren that we shot Nicolae Ceausescu like a rat at the dump but gave "Oliver Stown" an Academy Award...

...Robert M. Kelley Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Steven C Munson replier Apart from what its crudity and conspiracy-mongering tell us about Mr...

...If it is a defense of those writers, maybe he would re-write his rage into the monotone, dripping-faucet cadences of his favorite writers and send it back...

...I know of no convincing evidence that bizarre sexual practices are more prevalent in Cairo than they are in London or Arlington...

...Because at the center of democracy is this equilibrium, we would rather have ten contending devils than one omnipotent angel...

...His superb analysis echoed and corroborated so much in the book June 4: A Chronicle of the Chinese Democratic Uprising...

...After I read it from cover to cover, the now dog-eared copy would make its way to Rachel, Steve's girlfriend (notice the hierarchy here...

...Steve took a little longer to get through the issue, but would subsequently pass it along to me...

...One would have to go back to the writings of Julius Streicher to find equally vicious racial caricatures...

...Bearing false witness" is a particularly serious crime under Islamic law, gambling is forbidden in most Arab countries (although surreptitiously practiced as in America), and fraud in business is a problem as it is elsewhere in the world...

...Kelley, his letter can fairly be said to exemplify the willful self-delusion with which Westerners have been romanticizing and sentimentalizing the Arabs for many, many years...

...Letters have come from Puerto Rico, Australia, the enslaved Marxist-Leninist state of Oregon, and even from (pre-counterrevolutionary) Bulgaria: Mr...

...Since I have an 11-year-old son, I particularly enjoyed it and am making copies of it for my son's teacher and other teacher friends...

...Lorimar, may your every film star Pia Zadora, be produced by Dino DeLaurentis, directed by John Landis, cost as much as Heaven's Gate, get reviews worse than Ishtar, and experience the same popular success as Leonard Part VI...

...Even in the conservative cultures of the Persian Gulf states, education for women is available through the college level and women engineers, bankers, and doctors can be found...

...Munson in particular will no doubt find it easy to publish more articles in Commentary...

...I was particularly interested in Morrison's discussion of the organization and self-government of the Chinese students...

...Finally, the use of family connections to improve one's career in business, government, or academe has plagued every society since the dawn of time...

...But aside from the fact that he is clearly angry, I have not been able to untangle his syntax enough to know what the hell he's saying...

...Maybe there weren't that many Communists in the State Department, but there sure were a whole lot of Democrats at Foggy Bottom...

...Even while it was happening, I marveled at their handling the logistics of the mass meetings and protests...

...It seems odd to find veneration of parents decried in a traditionalist conservative journal...

...This means, among other things, engaging in the kinds of rationalizations and falsifications that transform bloody despots into enlightened leaders and primitive customs into quaint traditions, all the while pretending that the values that underlie an often violent, cruel, and degrading way of life can be harmonized with our own...

...Munson and PryceJones have never met a worthless son-in-law who was appointed director of public relations because Big Daddy was CEO, I would be happy to introduce them to a few...

...Bill and I will be planning a similar "merger" when I finish my degree and move to his place in Philadelphia this winter...

...2. In business, Arabs regard lying as "not really a moral matter but a method of safeguarding honor and (continued on page 50) ENEMIES LIST UPDATE T he call for a New McCarthyism (TAS, July, October, and November 1989) continues to stimulate reader fury...

...Women are "possessed of few rights, little freedom, denied opportunities for education, work, and ownership...

...Pryce-Jones's model may have some relevance in Iraq, Syria, and Egypt but is ludicrously irrelevant to the political history of the Gulf states...

...He then turns on his coconspirators, places members of his own family in key positions, and persecutes those who might oppose him...

...When each issue would arrive, Bill would devour it in one sitting and then pass it along to his roommate, Steve...

...Their self-government was particularly impressive when compared with the shambles of Woodstock, so beloved of our liberal philosophers...

...What is distinctly "Arab" about this route for attaining and holding power...

...Thus it's a stellar day for conservatives all around (or so say I...

...As a long-time resident of the Arab world, I feel that I am as qualified as Pryce-Jones to discuss Arab culture from an outsider's perspective...

...J F Miller Boston, Massachusetts Big on- Zbig I'm astonished that the recommended Christmas books in the December TAS failed to include Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century, completed in August 1988 and published in 1989...

...For this reason I will not be renewing my subscription in January...

...Saul David Van Nuys, California Nothing Personal I was introduced to The American Spectator by my boyfriend, Bill, as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins...

...How does it differ from political culture in other parts of the Third World...

...But I also won't turn a blind eye to your December '89 cover, which seems truly tasteless...

...William Rice Ann Arbor...

...Arab fathers are respected and obeyed more than their West European and American counterparts, although their influence on the family is probably no greater than that of fathers in many South and East European cultures...

...I'd love to know what he means...

...Anyway, give us your tiresome, your poor-mouths, your muddled asses yearning for a good kick in the Calvins and we will make mock of them in print...

...The defeat and humiliation of the Soviet bloc should barely whet our appetite...

...Polygamy is virtually extinct among the upper and middle classes of the Gulf states and is uncommon even in the lower classes...

...Arranged marriages are scarcely unique to Arab culture andhave proved somewhat more successful than Pryce-Jones would have us believe...

...Megan Moynahan Cleveland, Ohio Kudos John R. Dunlap's article on "Kiddie Litter" (TAS, December 1989) was great...

...Ceterum censeo delenda est Liberalism...

...Sarah and William Tucker on the arrival of Karl Dylan Tucker from all of us at TAS...

...The writer holds the Gen...

...My husband and I usually devour the magazine the minute it arrives (we take turns), so I am sorry to confess that, what with one thing and another, I have just read Micah Morrison's splendid piece, "The Road to Revolt in China," November issue...

...If Messrs...

...Their ability to govern themselves for seven miraculous weeks flies in the face of all that we have been told by our mentors in TV-land: that the Chinese can't handle democracy, they aren't ready for it, and so on...

...Hazel S. Guyol Arkadelphia, Arkansas Watch Your Step In the fifth paragraph of Dave Shiflett's "Denver Spectator" ("First Impressions," TAS, December 1989) there is a possibly misleading sentence...

...I vote we prorogue the progressives and leave the bleeding hearts with bloody noses, no quarter asked and none given...

...November 14 also happens to be the birthday of well-known royalist Prince Charles, Mamie the-last-First-Lady-to-keep-her-mouthshut Eisenhower, and the TAS Enemies List originator—me...

...And, Joe, that's close enough for government work...

...Polygamy, underage marriage, temporary marriage, and divorce by repudiation are common practices in the Arab world, and in some places, such as the royal households of Saudi Arabia, one can still find harems, concubines, and slave girls...

...Particularly among long-time residents of the Arab world—witness the behavior of Western diplomats, for example, or that of oil company executives—the tendency is simply to adopt the outlook of the local government...

...From Pryce-Jones's tone of outrage, it sounds as though it has dawned on him that the scarab he bought from the street waif near the Pyramids might not in fact be a genuine Pharaonic relic...

...No Arab family I know bears even a faint resemblance to Pryce-Jones's grotesque portrait...