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September 18, 2005
Egypt-born illegal arrested with Pilot's Uniform
Here is an interesting article in Friday's Washington Post about Mahmoud Maawad, a 29-year engineering student who overstayed his visa and, oh yeah, purchased a pilot's uniform and $3000 worth of airplane-related DVDs including "How an Airline Captain should look and act" and "Mastering GPS flying." He was not studying aviation. He arrested by the FBI in Memphis when the DVD distribution outfit did not get its bill paid promptly and called a special agent to fret about its suspicions. (Thanks for the patriotism, guys, but how suspicious would you have been if Mahmoud had paid up?) Could it be an innocent hobby of Mahmoud's? Yes. Does he fit the al Qaeda profile? Unclear. Not paying bills does fit the profile. If he turns out to be married, have an upper-middle class family, not very religious, and spending a lot of time with a small clutch of Muslim friends, then yes, he (strangely) would fit the profile. And, even if he does not and is not connected to terrorism, he will most likely be deported. Under Ashcroft and now under Gonzalez, the U.S. Justice Dept. has a "zero tolerance" toward immigration violations. Sorry Mahmoud.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 03:15 PM
September 17, 2005
The Art of Interviewing
Despite itself, this is actually an interesting interview. An editor at FrontPagemag.com interviewed Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, a contributing editor to City Journal and the author of his new collection of essays Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses.
As always, Dalrymple is bursting with interesting things to say. But the interviewer makes that all too typical mistake of simply having a list of questions and going on ruthlessly to the next one. It is as if the editor believes that an interview is simply a series of command performances, with the question employed solely as a set of key words to cue the interview subject. Of course, this is how many television interviews are done—and, yes, I do blame cable (partly) for the dumbing down what 1980s liberals used to call "the national conversation." It is too bad that this young editor does not listen to the best of talk radio, in which questions are followed up and a discussion emerges. Read the interview and ask yourself how many interesting follow-up questions that you might have asked. (The other cardinal error the interviewer commits: he inserts himself into questions, e.g., "I have long thought..." without first establishing that his opinion should carry any weight with the reader. If he has any expertise, then his thoughts and experiences might well be worthwhile. If he simply someone who has lived life, that is no distinction. After all, that is something he has in common with all of his readers—and many of them have probably lived more of it.) Television is not the sole culprit. Listening to people talk to each other these days, you often hear one person talk about himself while another responds by relaying a similar life experience of his own. More elevated conversation occurs when one person explores the well-developed thoughts of another. And, yes, I mean thoughts, not feelings or experiences. So is the art of conversation dying? Let's talk about it.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:05 PM
September 14, 2005
Turning down Katrina Aid
Why is the U.S. State department turning down aid and medical personnel from a certain Middle Eastern country? Caroline Glick has the surprising story.
Posted by Richard Miniter at 06:47 PM