Controversial Essays

  If that was the act of a free man, then he must be one of the most unfit parents around. More likely, he was as unfree as all the other people in Cuba.

  What about what Juan Miguel Gonzalez said, that these were “distant” relatives in Miami, people he barely knew, who were holding his son against his father's wishes? It was Elian's uncle on his father's side. Are uncles distant relatives?

  What is even more telling is that telephone records show that Juan Miguel Gonzalez phoned these “distant” relatives, whom he supposedly barely knew, just about the time when Elian and his mother were making a desperate attempt to reach American soil. The Miami family said that he asked them to take care of Elian but the father denies this. In Cuba, he had better deny it.

  Then there were those grandmothers who came over, publicly asking for the return of Elian to Cuba. Yet, a Dominican nun who saw them privately in Miami said that these grandmothers showed fear like she had never seen before. The nun was at first in favor of returning Elian to Cuba and was, moreover, a friend of Janet Reno. But once she saw the fear of those grandmothers, she concluded that Castro was calling the shots and she wanted Elian kept out of his clutches.

  The famous midnight raid was what sealed Elian's fate. Far from being made to uphold “the rule of law,” that raid was made right after a court ruling that opened the door to a hearing requesting asylum for Elian. By seizing the boy at gunpoint and turning him over to his father, Janet Reno and the Clinton administration silenced Elian, who must now say whatever the Castro regime wants him to say. Those who want the truth will have to wait until Castro is gone.

  THE “AUTISM” DRAGNET

  The U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health have launched a campaign to get a government program created to “identify” children with autism at age two and then subject them to “intensive” early intervention for 25 hours a week or more. It sounds good, but so have so many other government programs that created more problems than they solved.

  Just who is to “identify” these children and by what criteria? A legal case in Nebraska shows the dangers in creating a government-mandated dragnet that can subject all sorts of children to hours of disagreeable, ineffective or even counterproductive treatment for something they do not have.

  A four-year old boy, whom we can call Bryan, was diagnosed as “autistic” and put into a program in which he grew worse instead of better, despite the protests of his parents. Eventually, these parents sued the school district, calling in as their expert witness Professor Stephen Camarata of Vanderbilt University.

  Professor Camarata examined Bryan and concluded that he was not autistic and should not be kept in the program that was not doing him any good. However, the hearing officer sided with the school district, for reasons that are a chilling example of what can happen when bureaucratic criteria prevail.

  According to the hearing officer: “The difficulty of the testimony of Dr. Camarata, is that it is obvious that he is frequently relying on a medical definition of autism, as opposed to the one contained in Nebraska Department of Education Rule 51.” But, since autism is a medical condition, the problem is with the bureaucratic rule, not the medical definition.

  When is a child autistic in Nebraska? According to the hearing officer, the “criteria established by the Nebraska Department of Education in order for a child to be verified as having autism” involve “varying degrees of atypical behavior” in a number of areas. These criteria reflect a lockstep view of how every child is supposed to develop.

  Given that lockstep vision, “precocious or advanced skill development” in a child “while other skills may develop at normal or extremely depressed rates” is one of the criteria for autism. Similarly when the “order of skill acquisition frequently does not follow normal developmental patterns.” In other words, if other kids can ride a tricycle before they can read and a particular kid can read before he can ride a tricycle, then he is in trouble.

  Another sign of autism, according to bureaucratic rule 006.04B2b: “The child's behavior may vary from high levels of activity and responsiveness to low levels.” If X turns him on and Y leaves him cold, then he is on his way to being labeled “autistic” in Nebraska.

  Another sign of autism: “Speech and/or language are either absent, delayed, or disordered.” This dragnet would bring in the great pianist Arthur Rubinstein, India's mathematical genius Ramanujan, Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker, and physicists Richard Feynman, Edward Teller and Albert Einstein—among many others.

  Meanwhile, back in Washington, people are pushing for a federal dragnet to find “autistic” children and subject them to “treatment” that none of us would want to undergo. They assure us that “experienced professionals” can identify autism in children as young as two years of age.

  Even assuming that this is true, how many highly trained professionals are available to evaluate the vast numbers of children who would be caught in a nationwide “autism” dragnet? Would the whole country become Nebraska writ large?

  Many children have already been labeled “autistic” or “retarded” on the basis of evaluations that lasted less then ten minutes—and many of these evaluations have later been contradicted, either by more highly qualified specialists or by the course of events as the child developed.

  Parents need to seek out the best available medical and other evaluations of a child with problems. But that is very different from a federal dragnet controlled by armies of bureaucrats who can plague parents and children alike.

  Parents of late-talking children have reported that they have been urged to allow their kids to be labeled “autistic” in order to get federal money that can be used for speech therapy. Maybe that has contributed to the “increase” in autism we hear about—which in turn has contributed to the stampede for a new federal program.

  RACIAL PROFILING OF AUTHORS

  Now that police departments are supposed to stop racial profiling, maybe it is time for book publishers and bookstores to stop as well.

  I first became aware of the racial profiling of authors when I saw my book Migrations and Cultures in the black studies section of my local bookstore. Since the book is about migrations from Europe and Asia, obviously the only reason for putting it there was that the author is black.

  Racial bean counters are asking publishers to tell them which of their authors are black and no doubt some of these publishers are complying. But the practical consequence of this racial profiling is that a black author who writes a book about cameras or cooking is liable to have his book put on a bookstore shelf based on the race of the writer, rather than the subject of the book. This means that readers who are looking for books on cameras or cooking are unlikely to find his book in the section where such books are kept.

  Some people may actually think that they are doing black writers a favor by setting up a black authors' section of a bookstore. But, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Black writers, like white writers, want their books to reach the readers—and anything that interferes with that is bad news.

  University of California Regent Ward Connerly found the same practice in an east coast bookstore that I found on the west coast. His partly autobiographical and partly political book, Creating Equal was nowhere to be seen in either the biographical section of the bookstore or in the political section. It was on the shelves for “African-American Interest.” The store manager said that this was done as a “service to the community.”

  What a service—putting a book where it is least likely to be found! If it is a service to any black writers, it is a service only to those who write exclusively for and about fellow blacks. But does either the black community or American society in general need a literary version of racial apartheid?

  It is no service to readers either. Imagine that you are looking for a book on the history of military conquests and cannot find anything you like in the history section of your local bookstore—and that a book on that very subject by a bla
ck writer (yours truly, for example) is off in another part of the store.

  Someone who stood in the black studies section of a major bookstore for 20 minutes reported that not a single white person entered that section during that time. Why would anyone want to put books where only a fraction of the public is likely to look—especially if it is a book on a subject of no special interest to that particular fraction?

  It is bad enough that bookstores engage in the racial profiling of authors. But so do some publishers.

  The ridiculous lengths to which publishers can carry racial profiling was demonstrated to me when copies of my recently published book Basic Economics were sent out to Jet magazine, the Amsterdam News and other black publications. After I complained, copies were then sent to the Wall Street Journal and other publications dealing with economics.

  I had naively believed that publishers were not only in the business of publishing books but also of selling them. But apparently keeping up with fads is considered more important.

  The mindless political correctness of the racial bean counters has invaded and corrupted one institution after another. A recent advertisement in the Chronicle of Higher Education lists a job as “Vice-Provost for Diversity and Equal Opportunity.” In other words, this job is being campus quota czar. You have reached the holy grail of “diversity” when you have black leftists, white leftists, female leftists and Hispanic leftists as professors.

  Major corporations across the country have their affirmative action officials and many also have “diversity consultants” who come in and harangue the employees with the politically correct party line on race. Not since the days when the Nazis spoke of “Jewish science” has the idea been so widespread that race is destiny as far as ideas are concerned.

  Only such an underlying assumption could create even the semblance of rationality to the notion that you are promoting “diversity” of viewpoints by having people of different skin colors on campus or in business—or with their books in different parts of bookstores.

  CHANDRA LEVY CLUES

  One of the clues in the Chandra Levy case that may have been dismissed too quickly was a call to the police on the morning of her disappearance, reporting a woman's scream heard in the building where she lived. This seems to have been disregarded as an unrelated event because it occurred hours before the time when Chandra Levy was supposed to have used her computer in her apartment.

  But nobody actually saw her using the computer. All that is known is that the computer was used. If Chandra Levy was abducted hours earlier, whoever had her also had access to her keys. Why would such a person, or an accomplice, come back to that apartment and use a computer? Only to throw off the police.

  Obviously, no ordinary street criminal would do that. Only someone with a vested interest in misleading the police would do it. But then, nothing else about the Chandra Levy case suggests that her disappearance was the work of a random street criminal.

  Ordinary rapists, muggers and robbers do not go to such trouble to dispose of a body that a massive police dragnet fails to find it. Street criminals get what they want and then leave the scene before they are either caught by cops or recognized by witnesses.

  Everything about the way Chandra Levy left her apartment suggests that she was going to meet someone she knew. Ordinarily she was very security conscious and took precautions, such as having her cell phone with her. Yet on this occasion she left everything behind in her apartment and took only her keys with her.

  This does not necessarily mean that she knew the person who abducted her or killed her. She could have been lured to where that person was waiting by a message from someone she did know and trust, and who said that he or she would be at that place. Chandra might well have screamed when she was ambushed by somebody else.

  All this suggests premeditation. Sometimes people have an argument that escalates out of control and leads to violence or death. But at such an emotional moment, one is not very likely to come up with a scheme for disposing of the body so cleverly that an army of cops cannot find it.

  Murders are all too common. But murders in which the body cannot be found are much rarer. There has to be some compelling reason why a killer does not just flee the scene of the crime.

  Obviously, if the crime occurred in the killer's home or on his job, then the body must be moved. But, if it happened somewhere else, then the dangers of hanging around or carting a body around would have to be weighed against whatever advantage could be gotten by hiding the body.

  What do you gain by hiding the body? In some cases, it may be possible to hide the fact that any crime was committed. If a globe-trotting reporter were murdered in London and the body never found, then that reporter might just be regarded as missing in action anywhere around the world. But that was impossible in the case of Chandra Levy.

  As an intern whose term was up at a particular time, and whose parents were expecting her back in California shortly afterwards, Chandra Levy's disappearance was bound to be noticed, whether a body turned up or not. With the passage of time, the likelihood of an accident would have to decline to the vanishing point and foul play left as the only reasonable conclusion.

  If her death was caused by someone who knew her, then that person would also know this. Thus there would be no point in trying to conceal the very existence of a crime. All that could be concealed would be the identity of whoever was responsible. Misleading the police about the time at which her abduction happened might be worth spending some time at her computer or having someone else spend time there.

  In any event, someone obviously thought it was very important that her body not be found. But why? If her body were found in a park or on the street with a fatal gunshot wound, for example, how much of a clue would that be? Enough to take the risks of spending time finding a secure place to dispose of her remains?

  What would make her body a bigger clue would be if she were pregnant. That could point the police toward whoever was responsible for her death. Moreover, pregnancy could have set in motion a chain of events that led someone to feel a need to get rid of her permanently. Pregnant young women can cause big trouble, especially if they feel betrayed by whoever was responsible.

  BARRY AND THE BABE

  This season, Barry Bonds has been a Giant in more than name. While baseball fans and the media have been focussed on his record-breaking home-run feats, far less attention has been paid to his other feats that have been even more spectacular—and, in fact, unique.

  Barry Bonds is the first batter in the entire history of the National League—going back into the 19th century—to have a slugging average over .800. The only other player in the history of baseball to slug over .800 was Babe Ruth, who did it two seasons in a row.

  In other words, a slugging average of .800 is rarer than a batting average of .400. The last player to hit .400—Ted Williams—did it 60 years ago. But Ruth slugged .800 twenty years before that—and nobody else has done it again until this year.

  Slugging averages tell you more than either batting averages or home run totals. As far as batting averages are concerned, a bunt single and a tape-measure home run are the same. But they are rarely the same in their effect on the outcome of a ball game.

  The total number of home runs is not the whole story either. The year that Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's record for home runs in a season, Mickey Mantle actually hit home runs in a higher percentage of his times at bat. It is just that Mantle was walked more than Maris. A big reason why Maris was walked less than a hundred times that year was that Mantle was on deck. Walking Maris would just get you in deeper and deeper.

  Just as batting averages count hits in proportion to your times at bat, slugging averages count your total bases in proportion to your times at bat. If you hit a single and a double in five times at bat, that's three total bases and a slugging average of .600. That slugging average for a whole season is rarer than a batting average of .300.

  A slugging average of .700 is of course even r
arer. Some of the great sluggers of all time—Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays—never reached a slugging average of .700 in even their best seasons. So a slugging average over .800 is practically unheard of.

  What does an .800 slugging average mean? It means 8 total bases every ten times at bat—all season long. You can get 8 total bases with two singles, a double and a home run. Or you can do it with two home runs or four doubles or other combinations. But, however you do it, it is hard to keep on doing it for a whole season. Only Barry and the Babe have done that.

  It is not coincidental that Ruth and Bonds each holds his respective league's season records for being walked. These are not the kind of guys you can afford to pitch to when the game is on the line. It is significant that Bonds hit his 70th home run in the last inning of a game where the score was 9 to 2. He had been walked again and again earlier in that game and in previous games when the score was close.

  Where does this incredible season put Bonds among the all-time greats? It certainly moves him up the list but one season is not a whole career. Like Roger Maris, Bonds hit over 20 home runs more in his record-breaking season than he did in any other season. Will he turn out to be a one-year wonder, like Maris?

  This is not to say that Bonds would not have been a star player, even if he had never had this spectacular season. He would have been headed for Cooperstown anyway. Maris too was an outstanding player and had won the Most Valuable Player award the year before breaking the home run record, as well as in that year.

  But if you are talking about being up there in the rarefied atmosphere of Babe Ruth, that is another story. Bonds never had a slugging average of .700 before this year. Mark McGwire reached that level twice and Babe Ruth nine times. Ruth's lifetime slugging average was .690, a level Bonds never reached in his best season before this year.