From The Australian:
A giant of faith and freedom on the world stage
Pope John Paul II has been a great figure of the 20th century, an authentic giant of history who will be remembered as long as human beings value liberty or care about religion. John Paul II has been the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church. But he has been much more than that. By the force of his extraordinary personality, the clarity of his message and his immense courage he has been a figure of vast consequence who shook the foundations of the world. While very few have agreed with every single thing he said or did, his influence on the world has been overwhelmingly positive.
John Paul II has loved God, but he has also loved human beings and regarded each human being as sacred and imbued with innate dignity, and above all deserving of freedom. His remarkable personality was forged in the crucible of the two monstrous ideologies of 20th-century Europe - Nazism and communism. He detested both, he resisted both, he understood both.
What an optimistic and resilient spirit it must have taken to begin studying for the Catholic priesthood in Poland in 1942. But no sooner was the Nazi nightmare over for Poland than the communist nightmare began. It is probably for his role in the downfall of communism that John Paul II will be most obviously remembered. Poland became at one moment the pivot of Europe, and for a time the pivot of history. It was John Paul II's instinctive and sustained support for the Polish trade union movement, Solidarity, and its exuberant and brave leader, Lech Walesa, that was critical in leading to the downfall of communism in Poland. And this in turn had a mesmerising effect on the rest of Eastern Europe. The iron curtain of Stalin's tyranny and despair, which had hung across expanding swaths of Europe since 1917, was torn back as much by the Pope as by any other individual. Indeed, with Ronald Reagan and Lech Walesa, the Pope formed an astonishing triumvirate, allied in the common cause of human freedom and human dignity.
In many ways John Paul II has been the first wholly modern Pope. Nazism and communism were quintessentially expressions of a deformed modernism and this the Pope understood profoundly. His adroit leadership during the fall of the Polish communist government answered forever Stalin's sneering question: "How many battalions has the Pope?" The Cold War seems a long way away now, but it is right to pause to remember the radical evil that communism, the true ideological twin of Nazism, represented and the immense historical project involved in its consignment to the dustbin of history.
This is not the only political challenge the Pope has had to manage in his long reign. He has always been the friend of freedom, denouncing apartheid, opposing dictatorships and yet doing so in a way which would not increase the persecution of innocent people. But of course the Pope has not seen himself primarily as a political figure. Nor would it be fair to evaluate him as such. He has been, in his own words, a sign of contradiction, a great paradox of a leader. For his kingdom was not of this world. He has always believed in the importance of this world because of its relationship to the higher order of the spiritual world. In that sense, the Pope has been two separate leaders, an astute political figure central to the power equations of his time, and a deeply contemplative and intellectual spiritual leader, whose criterion of judgment was eternity.
Much of Western opinion, while it has admired the Pope's valiant stand for political freedom, found his spirituality baffling and his moral teaching incomprehensible or downright offensive. It is fair to say that in the majority of theological and moral utterances he has made, the Pope has been condemned by majority Western opinion. But from the Pope's point of view, it has not been necessary to have the numbers. It has been much more important to be speaking the truth. No one doubts the huge physical courage of the Pope, who survived a would-be assassin's bullet in May 1981, an attempt widely believed to be the work of the Soviet KGB. It surely was another aspect of that courage to stand so trenchantly against every tenet of received opinion in the Western world.
The Pope has preached discipline, restraint and submission to legitimate authority in spiritual matters. This was never a contradiction of his insistence of human freedom in the political order. For even his view of the spiritual life has been based on the centrality of human freedom, the freedom of the human conscience to choose what is right. It is not the place of a church leader to give in to social fashion. The Western world is awash with self-indulgence and the pursuit of instant gratification. It hardly needed a church leader to tell it that this was all OK. Instead John Paul II has taken the much harder road of trying to remind the West of God, and the obligations of morality. Even those who have no religious belief can recognise that there is a benefit to society to have such a message delivered uncompromisingly by an authoritative leader.
In the Third World, the Pope's approach has been much more popular, although part of the paradox of his magnetic personality is that he is personally popular even in nations whose people overwhelmingly rejected his moral teachings. It is right to say the Pope has been conservative theologically and socially. Many people within the Catholic Church have not agreed with his teachings on birth control or sexual morality generally. But it is also worth noting that these are the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church. It is unlikely that the Pope's successor will change these teachings. And at the end of the day, people are free to be Catholics or not. John Paul II's clarity has presented people with sharp choices, and moral choices of any consequence are always uncomfortable.
But whatever judgments people make about individual positions the Pope has taken, few could fail to be moved by the courage and grandeur of his life story, or the poetry and generosity of his personality. More than any pope in history, he travelled the world, not only to teach, but in large measure simply to express a human solidarity with ordinary people the world over. When he first became Pope, at age 58, his great physical and intellectual vigour made him a naturally glamorous figure.
An actor as a young man (in underground theatre), John Paul II has always been a natural with a crowd. He loves to be with people, in large numbers and small. Despite his conservatism, his views have never been predictable along a Left-Right axis. He has fiercely opposed capital punishment, and opposed both the Gulf Wars. He has been the champion of ecumenism, becoming the first pope to visit the Rome synagogue, and apologising for the history of Christian anti-Semitism. He has energetically pursued inter-faith dialogue with all of the world's religions, understanding that in the end the religious impulse is directed to the same God.
John Paul II has been a controversial figure and the controversies will rage for many years to come. Politically, theologically, socially -- his influence has been pervasive. And he has produced a rich lode of writings for followers and critics and the merely curious to explore. But few civilised people anywhere today will feel anything but saddened at the deterioration of one of the greatest figures of our time.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
From National Review Online:
Witness to a Man of Hope & Inspiration
The life and legacy of Pope John Paul II.
Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez
Pope John Paul II died Saturday night, Rome time, at age 84. Official papal biographer George Weigel (author of Witness to Hope) spoke to NRO's editor Kathryn Lopez about the man and his papacy and his place in history.
National Review Online: What's Pope John Paul's greatest legacy?
George Weigel: He was the great Christian witness of the last quarter of the 20th century, the man who took the Christian proposal to more of the world than anyone else. His pivotal role in the collapse of European Communism will be remembered by many; I hope they remember that he helped bring down the Wall as a pastor and teacher, not as a politician.
NRO: We know he's played a big role in the history of the world, how about more parochially — in Catholic history?
Weigel: This was the most intellectually consequential pontificate since the Council of Trent. The Church will be digesting the teaching of John Paul II for at least a century, and possibly longer. In addition to that, and at a more personal level, John Paul inspired literally tens of millions of Catholics to live lives of radical Christian conviction. That will extend his influence far into the future.
NRO: Had Karol Wojtyla never become pope, would have played a significant role in history regardless?
Weigel: In some respects. He would certainly have been remembered in Poland as a major figure in that country's 20th- century history. And eventually, aspects of his thought — like his revolutionary "theology of the body" — would have gotten out to the West and would have begun to have an influence.
NRO: If there was one of his writings you'd think he'd recommend we all read (or reread; Catholics and non-Catholics alike), what do you think it would be and why?
Weigel: I think Crossing the Threshold of Hope" is a remarkable window into John Paul II's mind and heart; it bears reading and rereading, by everyone.
NRO: What has Pope John Paul II taught us about suffering and death, through his example?
Weigel: He reminded Christians by his example that the Christian way is always the Way of the Cross. He reminded everyone that there is no such thing as a disposable human being.
NRO: Do you have a favorite PJPII story you'll be remembering him by?
Weigel: I suppose I'll remember for a long time the night I gave him Witness to Hope. At the end of dinner, as he was saying good-bye, he gave me a huge embrace and held me, without saying a word, for what seemed like a couple of minutes. I'll also remember him greeting 150 of my students from the summer program in Cracow at which I teach alongside Father Richard Neuhaus and Michael Novak. We'd expected a five-minute minute meeting; the Pope insisted on meeting every student individually, for almost an hour. It was typical of the man.
Witness to a Man of Hope & Inspiration
The life and legacy of Pope John Paul II.
Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez
Pope John Paul II died Saturday night, Rome time, at age 84. Official papal biographer George Weigel (author of Witness to Hope) spoke to NRO's editor Kathryn Lopez about the man and his papacy and his place in history.
National Review Online: What's Pope John Paul's greatest legacy?
George Weigel: He was the great Christian witness of the last quarter of the 20th century, the man who took the Christian proposal to more of the world than anyone else. His pivotal role in the collapse of European Communism will be remembered by many; I hope they remember that he helped bring down the Wall as a pastor and teacher, not as a politician.
NRO: We know he's played a big role in the history of the world, how about more parochially — in Catholic history?
Weigel: This was the most intellectually consequential pontificate since the Council of Trent. The Church will be digesting the teaching of John Paul II for at least a century, and possibly longer. In addition to that, and at a more personal level, John Paul inspired literally tens of millions of Catholics to live lives of radical Christian conviction. That will extend his influence far into the future.
NRO: Had Karol Wojtyla never become pope, would have played a significant role in history regardless?
Weigel: In some respects. He would certainly have been remembered in Poland as a major figure in that country's 20th- century history. And eventually, aspects of his thought — like his revolutionary "theology of the body" — would have gotten out to the West and would have begun to have an influence.
NRO: If there was one of his writings you'd think he'd recommend we all read (or reread; Catholics and non-Catholics alike), what do you think it would be and why?
Weigel: I think Crossing the Threshold of Hope" is a remarkable window into John Paul II's mind and heart; it bears reading and rereading, by everyone.
NRO: What has Pope John Paul II taught us about suffering and death, through his example?
Weigel: He reminded Christians by his example that the Christian way is always the Way of the Cross. He reminded everyone that there is no such thing as a disposable human being.
NRO: Do you have a favorite PJPII story you'll be remembering him by?
Weigel: I suppose I'll remember for a long time the night I gave him Witness to Hope. At the end of dinner, as he was saying good-bye, he gave me a huge embrace and held me, without saying a word, for what seemed like a couple of minutes. I'll also remember him greeting 150 of my students from the summer program in Cracow at which I teach alongside Father Richard Neuhaus and Michael Novak. We'd expected a five-minute minute meeting; the Pope insisted on meeting every student individually, for almost an hour. It was typical of the man.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
From Mere Comments, the Touchstone weblog:
Terri Schiavo & the Innocent Who Suffer
Kallistos Ware, an Eastern Orthodox bishop from England, took his Chicago audience on a tour of the Book of Job Tuesday evening that brought us face-to-face with the mystery of suffering. In Job we see someone who suffers innocently and through that experience is granted by God an intercessory role—Job now may pray on behalf of his comforters, who in the end had nothing to say.
Only the experience of the divine presence resolves Job’s dilemma. But there is comfort in the fact that Job does not speak into a void, that God in fact responds to him, even if he does not explain Job's suffering—he still enters into dialogue with Job, who prefers to repent and no longer speak. In just this way God, according to Hebrews 1:1, speaks to us now, not through the words of prophets, but by the very life of his Son, who like Job, suffered in innocence. Hebrews portrays Christ as the supreme intercessor, foreshadowed by Job, and also as the one who actually faced our temptations and lived among us, God-in-the-flesh who does not explain evil and suffering so much as accompany us through it. He is present with us.
In this light, there is little to be said in explaining the death of Terri Schiavo, whose name was mentioned on Tuesday night in the Q & A afterwards on suffering. All present, I believe, felt a solidarity with her and her family, and the prayers offered for the suffering included her most assuredly.
Terri Schiavo died today as a result of many forces beyond her control and the control of her parents, ultimately. The threads of some of these forces likely go back into recesses of time beyond our grasp. Given some of the statements of those who favored her death, it would seem also that some of these forces were aligned with the powers against which we struggle that are not flesh and blood.
We cannot view her death as a victory for evil, which in some way it certainly is, but as an opportunity in that it shows more clearly the grip that the culture of death holds on our society. We must continue to speak for life whatever the cost. If one needs motivation to do so, I cannot think of one better than the fate of Terri Schiavo. In the end, though, it is the faith of Job that sustains us, the faith that “my Redeemer lives.” Terri has left the hands of her abusers for the company of the One who touched the leper, placed his hands on the eyes of the blind, set his fingers upon the ears of the deaf, and called forth Lazarus from the day of corruption. If He did that among us before His Passion, then what He is capable of now in the time when His Resurrection must be beyond what we can even imagine.
Terri Schiavo, may she rest in peace, in the company of Christ and all his saints.
Terri Schiavo & the Innocent Who Suffer
Kallistos Ware, an Eastern Orthodox bishop from England, took his Chicago audience on a tour of the Book of Job Tuesday evening that brought us face-to-face with the mystery of suffering. In Job we see someone who suffers innocently and through that experience is granted by God an intercessory role—Job now may pray on behalf of his comforters, who in the end had nothing to say.
Only the experience of the divine presence resolves Job’s dilemma. But there is comfort in the fact that Job does not speak into a void, that God in fact responds to him, even if he does not explain Job's suffering—he still enters into dialogue with Job, who prefers to repent and no longer speak. In just this way God, according to Hebrews 1:1, speaks to us now, not through the words of prophets, but by the very life of his Son, who like Job, suffered in innocence. Hebrews portrays Christ as the supreme intercessor, foreshadowed by Job, and also as the one who actually faced our temptations and lived among us, God-in-the-flesh who does not explain evil and suffering so much as accompany us through it. He is present with us.
In this light, there is little to be said in explaining the death of Terri Schiavo, whose name was mentioned on Tuesday night in the Q & A afterwards on suffering. All present, I believe, felt a solidarity with her and her family, and the prayers offered for the suffering included her most assuredly.
Terri Schiavo died today as a result of many forces beyond her control and the control of her parents, ultimately. The threads of some of these forces likely go back into recesses of time beyond our grasp. Given some of the statements of those who favored her death, it would seem also that some of these forces were aligned with the powers against which we struggle that are not flesh and blood.
We cannot view her death as a victory for evil, which in some way it certainly is, but as an opportunity in that it shows more clearly the grip that the culture of death holds on our society. We must continue to speak for life whatever the cost. If one needs motivation to do so, I cannot think of one better than the fate of Terri Schiavo. In the end, though, it is the faith of Job that sustains us, the faith that “my Redeemer lives.” Terri has left the hands of her abusers for the company of the One who touched the leper, placed his hands on the eyes of the blind, set his fingers upon the ears of the deaf, and called forth Lazarus from the day of corruption. If He did that among us before His Passion, then what He is capable of now in the time when His Resurrection must be beyond what we can even imagine.
Terri Schiavo, may she rest in peace, in the company of Christ and all his saints.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
From Opinion Journal:
Red Dusk
It's time Hollywood gave up its love affair with communism.
By Bridget Johnson
HOLLYWOOD--Considering how steeped in elitism last month's Academy Awards were--with "lesser" winners forced to stay back in their aisles or dutifully line up on stage, thus robbing them of a once-in-a-lifetime trip down the aisle--Hollywood sure has embraced communism with open arms.
In a town where antiwar activism is hot, a militant icon is even hotter: "The Motorcycle Diaries," a saintly portrayal of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in his early days, executive produced by Robert Redford and the toast of the Sundance Film Festival, won the Oscar for best song. "Al Otro Lado del Rio" was sung onstage by Antonio Banderas, accompanied by Carlos Santana--clad in the ubiquitous Che T-shirt that has become the brand of wannabe suburban revolutionaries.
Now that "Motorcycle" has ridden into the awards sunset--ironically, considering the nature of communism, also picking up two Independent Spirit Awards--the sequel to Che canonization is on the horizon. Filming is scheduled to start later this year on "Che," a Steven Soderbergh ("Traffic") vehicle starring Benicio del Toro as the famed Marxist. The plot line as listed on the Internet Movie Database: "An epic about Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, who fought for the people."
Wait, there's more. IMDb lists another movie titled "Che" currently filming, written and directed by Josh Evans, son of Ali McGraw. If one can assume that Sonia Braga's "Celia" character is Guevara's mother, are we in store for another innocent, youthful portrayal of the guerrilla in "The Tricycle Diaries"?
Annoying as the Che adulation is, a recent comment by a 14-year-old on an online movie message board was truly disturbing: "I just saw The Motorcycle Diaries, which further made me question: Why is communism bad? . . . Young people are told how bad communism is, but we are not told why. . . . The Motorcycle Diaries showed me how Ernesto Guevara wanted to help people. . . . But this did not explain why he was such a 'bad' person and apparently deserved to be murdered by the U.S."
Is this a legacy of dangerous ignorance that the makers of "Che" wish to continue? Might this teen be taught that the product of Guevara and Castro's "revolution" is a nation whose inhabitants still risk their lives to escape--and an estimated one-third die trying? A nation where neighbor spies on neighbor, where dissent lands one in the clink--or worse--and persecution is punishment for everything from religion to homosexuality?
What feature films have showed the true nature of communism? There was "The Killing Fields," showing families torn apart, cities emptied, forced labor, bones littering the Cambodian landscape. Adding to the authenticity was its star, Oscar-winner and real-life survivor Haing S. Ngor, who would have been summarily executed had his intellectual background been discovered by the Khmer Rouge. As a cinematic achievement, it ranks as one of the best films of all time. As a historical testament, it shows that communism had nothing to do with betterment of the masses but stripped away everything that comprised the individual. Though this film should be required high-school viewing, not much else springs to mind that could counter the effects of pro-Marxist cinema.
I'll bet the big studio execs have never thought--or cared--to do a big-screen adaptation of "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression," by Stephane Courtois, et al. The book's 1997 publishing in France touched off a firestorm of controversy--mostly from offended French commies--and it stands as an astonishing comprehensive account of what this political ideology has wreaked on mankind in less than a century. The film version of this 800-plus-page account would be excruciatingly long and painful--too long for a 32-ounce soda and too nauseating for popcorn. So since Hollywood is all about franchises now anyway, the book could be adapted into several movies, each covering a corner of the globe and that region's own unique suffering under communism.
How about a film on the Soviet Union, beginning with Lenin and the 1917 revolution, droning on to Stalin's purges with hundreds of thousands executed by firing squad, and millions forced from their homes or carted off to labor camps? We'd see Soviet bloc countries strangled under communist rule, Berlin divided with concrete and snipers, Nicolae Ceausescu destroying historic Bucharest. We'd see Soviet terror exported with the scorched-earth policy in Afghanistan.
Red China would make a stellar film that lacks a happy ending--for now. Viewers would see Mao Tse-tung turn the colorful Chinese culture into a gray, bleak "worker's paradise" steeped in hunger and executions. We'd see the Great Leap Forward to devastating famine, murder and destruction in Tibet, women forced to abort their children, and the blood of student demonstrators spilled on Tiananmen Square. Complete the Asian film series with the "re-education" by terror in North Vietnam, the Maoist insurgency in Nepal that has killed thousands, and the hellish nightmare that is North Korea.
Some brilliant young director would have to tackle Africa's woes under communism, such as the starvation in Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam. And we can't forget the Latin American films, highlighting Peru's Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorists. And, of course, add a stark motion picture on the fall of Cuba--to be directed by anyone but Oliver Stone--that, though bloody and tragic, can end on a slightly lighter note (and an ovation) with Fidel Castro's fall down the stairs last October.
It seems in all of these dark films there would be no room for heroes, but there are more than could fill the Kodak Theatre and its exclusive stage: the boat people who have courted death to flee from Cuba and Vietnam, Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement, Vaclav Havel and his cohorts in the Velvet Revolution, the Hungarian resistance fighters who valiantly tried to keep the Soviets at bay in 1956, those who tried to find any way across the Berlin Wall, a lone man who blocked a column of advancing tanks in Tiananmen Square during 1989's democracy protests.
Villains would include--you guessed it--Che Guevara, whose legacy includes both ordering and conducting executions and founding forced labor camps. "Guevara . . . quickly gain[ed] a reputation for ruthlessness; a child in his guerrilla unit who had stolen a little food was immediately shot without trial," writes Pascal Fontaine in "The Black Book." Guevara also wrote in his diary about executing peasant Eutimio Guerra, a suspected informant, with a single .32-caliber shot to the head. Guevara, in his will, praised the "extremely useful hatred that turns men into effective, violent, merciless, and cold killing machines." He tried to spread the havoc caused by the Cuban revolution in other countries from Africa to South America, rallying for "two, three, many Vietnams!"
Guevara oversaw executions at La Cabana prison; some of those executed were his former comrades who wouldn't relinquish their democratic beliefs. "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," he said. He didn't assuage his barbarity by being a brilliant statesman, either, helping drive the economy to ruin as head of Cuba's central bank and minister of industries. "Though claiming to despise money," writes Fontaine, "he lived in one of the rich, private areas of Havana." Guevara told a British reporter after the Cuban Missile Crisis that the nukes would have been fired if they were under Cuban control--which would have wasted all of those future American suburban revolutionary wannabes.
Since "The Motorcycle Diaries" got an "R" rating for language, many teens missed out on the rosy, heroic portrayal of young Che saving a leper colony. But don't expect the MPAA judgment to get lighter for any of these proposed movies about the real toll of communism. The death count will surpass that of all "Rambo" flicks--nearly 100 million dead through the 20th century. Yes, it would stretch the boundaries of Hollywood's tidy "R" rating. But being impaled by a Bolshevik isn't pretty.
Ms. Johnson is a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News. Her blog is gopvixen.blogs.com.
Red Dusk
It's time Hollywood gave up its love affair with communism.
By Bridget Johnson
HOLLYWOOD--Considering how steeped in elitism last month's Academy Awards were--with "lesser" winners forced to stay back in their aisles or dutifully line up on stage, thus robbing them of a once-in-a-lifetime trip down the aisle--Hollywood sure has embraced communism with open arms.
In a town where antiwar activism is hot, a militant icon is even hotter: "The Motorcycle Diaries," a saintly portrayal of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in his early days, executive produced by Robert Redford and the toast of the Sundance Film Festival, won the Oscar for best song. "Al Otro Lado del Rio" was sung onstage by Antonio Banderas, accompanied by Carlos Santana--clad in the ubiquitous Che T-shirt that has become the brand of wannabe suburban revolutionaries.
Now that "Motorcycle" has ridden into the awards sunset--ironically, considering the nature of communism, also picking up two Independent Spirit Awards--the sequel to Che canonization is on the horizon. Filming is scheduled to start later this year on "Che," a Steven Soderbergh ("Traffic") vehicle starring Benicio del Toro as the famed Marxist. The plot line as listed on the Internet Movie Database: "An epic about Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, who fought for the people."
Wait, there's more. IMDb lists another movie titled "Che" currently filming, written and directed by Josh Evans, son of Ali McGraw. If one can assume that Sonia Braga's "Celia" character is Guevara's mother, are we in store for another innocent, youthful portrayal of the guerrilla in "The Tricycle Diaries"?
Annoying as the Che adulation is, a recent comment by a 14-year-old on an online movie message board was truly disturbing: "I just saw The Motorcycle Diaries, which further made me question: Why is communism bad? . . . Young people are told how bad communism is, but we are not told why. . . . The Motorcycle Diaries showed me how Ernesto Guevara wanted to help people. . . . But this did not explain why he was such a 'bad' person and apparently deserved to be murdered by the U.S."
Is this a legacy of dangerous ignorance that the makers of "Che" wish to continue? Might this teen be taught that the product of Guevara and Castro's "revolution" is a nation whose inhabitants still risk their lives to escape--and an estimated one-third die trying? A nation where neighbor spies on neighbor, where dissent lands one in the clink--or worse--and persecution is punishment for everything from religion to homosexuality?
What feature films have showed the true nature of communism? There was "The Killing Fields," showing families torn apart, cities emptied, forced labor, bones littering the Cambodian landscape. Adding to the authenticity was its star, Oscar-winner and real-life survivor Haing S. Ngor, who would have been summarily executed had his intellectual background been discovered by the Khmer Rouge. As a cinematic achievement, it ranks as one of the best films of all time. As a historical testament, it shows that communism had nothing to do with betterment of the masses but stripped away everything that comprised the individual. Though this film should be required high-school viewing, not much else springs to mind that could counter the effects of pro-Marxist cinema.
I'll bet the big studio execs have never thought--or cared--to do a big-screen adaptation of "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression," by Stephane Courtois, et al. The book's 1997 publishing in France touched off a firestorm of controversy--mostly from offended French commies--and it stands as an astonishing comprehensive account of what this political ideology has wreaked on mankind in less than a century. The film version of this 800-plus-page account would be excruciatingly long and painful--too long for a 32-ounce soda and too nauseating for popcorn. So since Hollywood is all about franchises now anyway, the book could be adapted into several movies, each covering a corner of the globe and that region's own unique suffering under communism.
How about a film on the Soviet Union, beginning with Lenin and the 1917 revolution, droning on to Stalin's purges with hundreds of thousands executed by firing squad, and millions forced from their homes or carted off to labor camps? We'd see Soviet bloc countries strangled under communist rule, Berlin divided with concrete and snipers, Nicolae Ceausescu destroying historic Bucharest. We'd see Soviet terror exported with the scorched-earth policy in Afghanistan.
Red China would make a stellar film that lacks a happy ending--for now. Viewers would see Mao Tse-tung turn the colorful Chinese culture into a gray, bleak "worker's paradise" steeped in hunger and executions. We'd see the Great Leap Forward to devastating famine, murder and destruction in Tibet, women forced to abort their children, and the blood of student demonstrators spilled on Tiananmen Square. Complete the Asian film series with the "re-education" by terror in North Vietnam, the Maoist insurgency in Nepal that has killed thousands, and the hellish nightmare that is North Korea.
Some brilliant young director would have to tackle Africa's woes under communism, such as the starvation in Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Mariam. And we can't forget the Latin American films, highlighting Peru's Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorists. And, of course, add a stark motion picture on the fall of Cuba--to be directed by anyone but Oliver Stone--that, though bloody and tragic, can end on a slightly lighter note (and an ovation) with Fidel Castro's fall down the stairs last October.
It seems in all of these dark films there would be no room for heroes, but there are more than could fill the Kodak Theatre and its exclusive stage: the boat people who have courted death to flee from Cuba and Vietnam, Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement, Vaclav Havel and his cohorts in the Velvet Revolution, the Hungarian resistance fighters who valiantly tried to keep the Soviets at bay in 1956, those who tried to find any way across the Berlin Wall, a lone man who blocked a column of advancing tanks in Tiananmen Square during 1989's democracy protests.
Villains would include--you guessed it--Che Guevara, whose legacy includes both ordering and conducting executions and founding forced labor camps. "Guevara . . . quickly gain[ed] a reputation for ruthlessness; a child in his guerrilla unit who had stolen a little food was immediately shot without trial," writes Pascal Fontaine in "The Black Book." Guevara also wrote in his diary about executing peasant Eutimio Guerra, a suspected informant, with a single .32-caliber shot to the head. Guevara, in his will, praised the "extremely useful hatred that turns men into effective, violent, merciless, and cold killing machines." He tried to spread the havoc caused by the Cuban revolution in other countries from Africa to South America, rallying for "two, three, many Vietnams!"
Guevara oversaw executions at La Cabana prison; some of those executed were his former comrades who wouldn't relinquish their democratic beliefs. "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," he said. He didn't assuage his barbarity by being a brilliant statesman, either, helping drive the economy to ruin as head of Cuba's central bank and minister of industries. "Though claiming to despise money," writes Fontaine, "he lived in one of the rich, private areas of Havana." Guevara told a British reporter after the Cuban Missile Crisis that the nukes would have been fired if they were under Cuban control--which would have wasted all of those future American suburban revolutionary wannabes.
Since "The Motorcycle Diaries" got an "R" rating for language, many teens missed out on the rosy, heroic portrayal of young Che saving a leper colony. But don't expect the MPAA judgment to get lighter for any of these proposed movies about the real toll of communism. The death count will surpass that of all "Rambo" flicks--nearly 100 million dead through the 20th century. Yes, it would stretch the boundaries of Hollywood's tidy "R" rating. But being impaled by a Bolshevik isn't pretty.
Ms. Johnson is a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News. Her blog is gopvixen.blogs.com.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
From The Village Voice:
Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder
Her crime was being disabled, voiceless, and at the disposal of our media
by Nat Hentoff
For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.
She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists.
Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own lawyer represent her.
Greer has declared Terri Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, but he has never gone to see her. His eyesight is very poor, but surely he could have visited her along with another member of his staff. Unlike people in a persistent vegetative state, Terri Schiavo is indeed responsive beyond mere reflexes.
While lawyers and judges have engaged in a minuet of death, the American Civil Liberties Union, which would be passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if Terri were a convict on death row, has shamefully served as co-counsel for her husband, Michael Schiavo, in his insistent desire to have her die.
Months ago, in discussing this case with ACLU executive director Anthony Romero, and later reading ACLU statements, I saw no sign that this bastion of the Bill of Rights has ever examined the facts concerning the egregious conflicts of interest of her husband and guardian Michael Schiavo, who has been living with another woman for years, with whom he has two children, and has violated a long list of his legal responsibilities as her guardian, some of them directly preventing her chances for improvement. Judge Greer has ignored all of them.
In February, Florida's Department of Children and Families presented Judge Greer with a 34-page document listing charges of neglect, abuse, and exploitation of Terri by her husband, with a request for 60 days to fully investigate the charges. Judge Greer, soon to remove Terri's feeding tube for the third time, rejected the 60-day extension. (The media have ignored these charges, and much of what follows in this article.)
Michael Schiavo, who says he loves and continues to be devoted to Terri, has provided no therapy or rehabilitation for his wife (the legal one) since 1993. He did have her tested for a time, but stopped all testing in 1993. He insists she once told him she didn't want to survive by artificial means, but he didn't mention her alleged wishes for years after her brain damage, while saying he would care for her for the rest of his life.
Terri Schiavo has never had an MRI or a PET scan, nor a thorough neurological examination. Republican Senate leader Bill Frist, a specialist in heart-lung transplant surgery, has, as The New York Times reported on March 23, "certified [in his practice] that patients were brain dead so that their organs could be transplanted." He is not just "playing doctor" on this case.
During a speech on the Senate floor on March 17, Frist, speaking of Judge Greer's denial of a request for new testing and examinations of Terri, said reasonably, "I would think you would want a complete neurological exam" before determining she must die.
Frist added: "The attorneys for Terri's parents have submitted 33 affidavits from doctors and other medical professionals,all of whom say that Terri should be re-evaluated."
In death penalty cases, defense counsel for retarded and otherwise mentally disabled clients submit extensive medical tests. Ignoring the absence of complete neurological exams, supporters of the deadly decisions by Judge Greer and the trail of appellate jurists keep reminding us how extensive the litigation in this case has been—19 judges in six courts is the mantra. And more have been added. So too in many death penalty cases, but increasingly, close to execution, inmates have been saved by DNA.
As David Gibbs, the lawyer for Terri's parents, has pointed out, there has been a manifest need for a new federal, Fourteenth Amendment review of the case because Terri's death sentence has been based on seven years of "fatally flawed" state court findings—all based on the invincible neglect of elementary due process by Judge George Greer.
I will be returning to the legacy of Terri Schiavo in the weeks ahead because there will certainly be long-term reverberations from this case and its fracturing of the rule of law in the Florida courts and then the federal courts—as well as the disgracefully ignorant coverage of the case by the great majority of the media, including such pillars of the trade as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and the Los Angeles Times as they copied each other's misinformation, like Terri Schiavo being "in a persistent vegetative state."
Do you know that nearly every major disability rights organization in the country has filed a legal brief in support of Terri's right to live?
But before I go back to other Liberty Beats—the CIA's torture renditions and the whitewashing of the landmark ACLU and Human Rights First's lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld for his accountability in the widespread abuse of detainees, including evidence of torture—I must correct the media and various "qualified experts" on how a person dies of dehydration if he or she is sentient, as Terri Schiavo demonstrably is.
On March 15's Nightline, in an appallingly one-sided, distorted account of the Schiavo case, Terri's husband, Michael—who'd like to marry the woman he's now living with—said that once Terri's feeding tube is removed at his insistent command, Terri "will drift off into a nice little sleep and eventually pass on and be with God."
As an atheist, I cannot speak to what he describes as his abandoned wife's ultimate destination, but I can tell how Wesley Smith (consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture)—whom I often consult on these bitterly controversial cases because of his carefully researched books and articles—describes death by dehydration.
In his book Forced Exit (Times Books), Wesley quotes neurologist William Burke: "A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you and I would. . . . Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining.
"They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! . . . It is an extremely agonizing death."
On March 23, outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo was growing steadily weaker, her mother, Mary, said to the courts and to anyone who would listen and maybe somehow save her daughter:
"Please stop this cruelty!"
While this cruelty was going on in the hospice, Michael Schiavo's serpentine lawyer, George Felos, said to one and all: "Terri is stable, peaceful, and calm. . . . She looked beautiful."
During the March 21 hearing before Federal Judge James D. Whittemore, who was soon to be another accomplice in the dehydration of Terri, the relentless Mr. Felos, anticipating the end of the deathwatch, said to the judge:
"Yes, life is sacred, but so is liberty, your honor, especially in this country."
It would be useless, but nonetheless, I would like to inform George Felos that, as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said: "The history of liberty is the history of due process"—fundamental fairness.
Contrary to what you've read and seen in most of the media, due process has been lethally absent in Terri Schiavo's long merciless journey through the American court system.
"As to legal concerns," writes William Anderson—a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard University—"a guardian may refuse any medical treatment, but drinking water is not such a procedure. It is not within the power of a guardian to withhold, and not in the power of a rational court to prohibit."
Ralph Nader agrees. In a statement on March 24, he and Wesley Smith (author of, among other books, Culture of Death: The Assault of Medical Ethics in America) said: "The court is imposing process over justice. After the first trial [before Judge Greer], much evidence has been produced that should allow for a new trial—which was the point of the hasty federal legislation.
"If this were a death penalty case, this evidence would demand reconsideration. Yet, an innocent, disabled woman is receiving less justice. . . . This case is rife with doubt. Justice demands that Terri be permitted to live." (Emphasis added.)
But the polls around the country cried out that a considerable majority of Americans wanted her to die without Congress butting in.
A March 20 ABC poll showed that 60 percent of the 501 adults consulted opposed the ultimately unsuccessful federal legislation, and only 35 percent approved. Moreover, 70 percent felt strongly that it was wrong for Congress to get into such personal, private matters—and interfere with what some advocates of euthanasia call "death with dignity." (So much for the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process and equal protection of the laws.)
But, as Cathy Cleaver Ruse of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops pointed out:
"The poll [questions] say she's 'on life support,' which is not true [since all she needs is water], and that she has 'no consciousness,' which her family and dozens of doctors dispute in sworn affidavits."
Many readers of this column are pro-choice, pro-abortion rights. But what choice did Terri Schiavo have under our vaunted rule of law—which the president is eagerly trying to export to the rest of the world? She had not left a living will or a durable power of attorney, and so could not speak for herself. But the American system of justice would not slake her thirst as she, on television, was dying in front of us all.
What kind of a nation are we becoming? The CIA outsources torture—in violation of American and international law—in the name of the freedoms we are fighting to protect against terrorism. And we have watched as this woman, whose only crime is that she is disabled, is tortured to death by judges, all the way to the Supreme Court.
And keep in mind from the Ralph Nader-Wesley Smith report: "The courts . . . have [also] ordered that no attempts be made to provide her water or food by mouth. Terri swallows her own saliva. Spoon feeding is not medical treatment. This outrageous order proves that the courts are not merely permitting medical treatment to be withheld, they have ordered her to be made dead."
In this country, even condemned serial killers are not executed in this way.
Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder
Her crime was being disabled, voiceless, and at the disposal of our media
by Nat Hentoff
For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.
She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists.
Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own lawyer represent her.
Greer has declared Terri Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, but he has never gone to see her. His eyesight is very poor, but surely he could have visited her along with another member of his staff. Unlike people in a persistent vegetative state, Terri Schiavo is indeed responsive beyond mere reflexes.
While lawyers and judges have engaged in a minuet of death, the American Civil Liberties Union, which would be passionately criticizing state court decisions and demanding due process if Terri were a convict on death row, has shamefully served as co-counsel for her husband, Michael Schiavo, in his insistent desire to have her die.
Months ago, in discussing this case with ACLU executive director Anthony Romero, and later reading ACLU statements, I saw no sign that this bastion of the Bill of Rights has ever examined the facts concerning the egregious conflicts of interest of her husband and guardian Michael Schiavo, who has been living with another woman for years, with whom he has two children, and has violated a long list of his legal responsibilities as her guardian, some of them directly preventing her chances for improvement. Judge Greer has ignored all of them.
In February, Florida's Department of Children and Families presented Judge Greer with a 34-page document listing charges of neglect, abuse, and exploitation of Terri by her husband, with a request for 60 days to fully investigate the charges. Judge Greer, soon to remove Terri's feeding tube for the third time, rejected the 60-day extension. (The media have ignored these charges, and much of what follows in this article.)
Michael Schiavo, who says he loves and continues to be devoted to Terri, has provided no therapy or rehabilitation for his wife (the legal one) since 1993. He did have her tested for a time, but stopped all testing in 1993. He insists she once told him she didn't want to survive by artificial means, but he didn't mention her alleged wishes for years after her brain damage, while saying he would care for her for the rest of his life.
Terri Schiavo has never had an MRI or a PET scan, nor a thorough neurological examination. Republican Senate leader Bill Frist, a specialist in heart-lung transplant surgery, has, as The New York Times reported on March 23, "certified [in his practice] that patients were brain dead so that their organs could be transplanted." He is not just "playing doctor" on this case.
During a speech on the Senate floor on March 17, Frist, speaking of Judge Greer's denial of a request for new testing and examinations of Terri, said reasonably, "I would think you would want a complete neurological exam" before determining she must die.
Frist added: "The attorneys for Terri's parents have submitted 33 affidavits from doctors and other medical professionals,all of whom say that Terri should be re-evaluated."
In death penalty cases, defense counsel for retarded and otherwise mentally disabled clients submit extensive medical tests. Ignoring the absence of complete neurological exams, supporters of the deadly decisions by Judge Greer and the trail of appellate jurists keep reminding us how extensive the litigation in this case has been—19 judges in six courts is the mantra. And more have been added. So too in many death penalty cases, but increasingly, close to execution, inmates have been saved by DNA.
As David Gibbs, the lawyer for Terri's parents, has pointed out, there has been a manifest need for a new federal, Fourteenth Amendment review of the case because Terri's death sentence has been based on seven years of "fatally flawed" state court findings—all based on the invincible neglect of elementary due process by Judge George Greer.
I will be returning to the legacy of Terri Schiavo in the weeks ahead because there will certainly be long-term reverberations from this case and its fracturing of the rule of law in the Florida courts and then the federal courts—as well as the disgracefully ignorant coverage of the case by the great majority of the media, including such pillars of the trade as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and the Los Angeles Times as they copied each other's misinformation, like Terri Schiavo being "in a persistent vegetative state."
Do you know that nearly every major disability rights organization in the country has filed a legal brief in support of Terri's right to live?
But before I go back to other Liberty Beats—the CIA's torture renditions and the whitewashing of the landmark ACLU and Human Rights First's lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld for his accountability in the widespread abuse of detainees, including evidence of torture—I must correct the media and various "qualified experts" on how a person dies of dehydration if he or she is sentient, as Terri Schiavo demonstrably is.
On March 15's Nightline, in an appallingly one-sided, distorted account of the Schiavo case, Terri's husband, Michael—who'd like to marry the woman he's now living with—said that once Terri's feeding tube is removed at his insistent command, Terri "will drift off into a nice little sleep and eventually pass on and be with God."
As an atheist, I cannot speak to what he describes as his abandoned wife's ultimate destination, but I can tell how Wesley Smith (consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture)—whom I often consult on these bitterly controversial cases because of his carefully researched books and articles—describes death by dehydration.
In his book Forced Exit (Times Books), Wesley quotes neurologist William Burke: "A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you and I would. . . . Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining.
"They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! . . . It is an extremely agonizing death."
On March 23, outside the hospice where Terri Schiavo was growing steadily weaker, her mother, Mary, said to the courts and to anyone who would listen and maybe somehow save her daughter:
"Please stop this cruelty!"
While this cruelty was going on in the hospice, Michael Schiavo's serpentine lawyer, George Felos, said to one and all: "Terri is stable, peaceful, and calm. . . . She looked beautiful."
During the March 21 hearing before Federal Judge James D. Whittemore, who was soon to be another accomplice in the dehydration of Terri, the relentless Mr. Felos, anticipating the end of the deathwatch, said to the judge:
"Yes, life is sacred, but so is liberty, your honor, especially in this country."
It would be useless, but nonetheless, I would like to inform George Felos that, as Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said: "The history of liberty is the history of due process"—fundamental fairness.
Contrary to what you've read and seen in most of the media, due process has been lethally absent in Terri Schiavo's long merciless journey through the American court system.
"As to legal concerns," writes William Anderson—a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard University—"a guardian may refuse any medical treatment, but drinking water is not such a procedure. It is not within the power of a guardian to withhold, and not in the power of a rational court to prohibit."
Ralph Nader agrees. In a statement on March 24, he and Wesley Smith (author of, among other books, Culture of Death: The Assault of Medical Ethics in America) said: "The court is imposing process over justice. After the first trial [before Judge Greer], much evidence has been produced that should allow for a new trial—which was the point of the hasty federal legislation.
"If this were a death penalty case, this evidence would demand reconsideration. Yet, an innocent, disabled woman is receiving less justice. . . . This case is rife with doubt. Justice demands that Terri be permitted to live." (Emphasis added.)
But the polls around the country cried out that a considerable majority of Americans wanted her to die without Congress butting in.
A March 20 ABC poll showed that 60 percent of the 501 adults consulted opposed the ultimately unsuccessful federal legislation, and only 35 percent approved. Moreover, 70 percent felt strongly that it was wrong for Congress to get into such personal, private matters—and interfere with what some advocates of euthanasia call "death with dignity." (So much for the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process and equal protection of the laws.)
But, as Cathy Cleaver Ruse of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops pointed out:
"The poll [questions] say she's 'on life support,' which is not true [since all she needs is water], and that she has 'no consciousness,' which her family and dozens of doctors dispute in sworn affidavits."
Many readers of this column are pro-choice, pro-abortion rights. But what choice did Terri Schiavo have under our vaunted rule of law—which the president is eagerly trying to export to the rest of the world? She had not left a living will or a durable power of attorney, and so could not speak for herself. But the American system of justice would not slake her thirst as she, on television, was dying in front of us all.
What kind of a nation are we becoming? The CIA outsources torture—in violation of American and international law—in the name of the freedoms we are fighting to protect against terrorism. And we have watched as this woman, whose only crime is that she is disabled, is tortured to death by judges, all the way to the Supreme Court.
And keep in mind from the Ralph Nader-Wesley Smith report: "The courts . . . have [also] ordered that no attempts be made to provide her water or food by mouth. Terri swallows her own saliva. Spoon feeding is not medical treatment. This outrageous order proves that the courts are not merely permitting medical treatment to be withheld, they have ordered her to be made dead."
In this country, even condemned serial killers are not executed in this way.
Monday, March 28, 2005
A Well-Deserved Win
By Thad Williamson - Inside Carolina
SYRACUSE, N.Y. --- For years, the most salient criticism of Dean Smith’s core defensive system has focused on its perceived vulnerability to the three-point shot. When you employ a trap, or when you prioritize helping against the drive or helping a post defender down low over staying glued to your man at all times, shooters on occasion are going to be open.
Statistically speaking, over a large enough number of games this system works well. It is not the case that Carolina’s opponents over the years have (on aggregate) shot an inordinately high percentage from three-point range, and in a number of big games (such as the 1995 regional final victory over Kentucky), Carolina’s tactics baited opponents into simply shooting themselves out of the game. Moreover, in normal years Carolina’s opponents, tending to rely on a higher percentage of outside shots, have not gotten to the foul line nearly as much as the Tar Heels themselves.
But winning single elimination basketball tournaments involves not compiling the best results over a representative sample of games between two teams, but winning six individual games, with no room for error. The concern, then, (discussed briefly in the February issue of the IC Magazine and more extensively in Dean Oliver’s interesting book "Basketball on Paper"), is that the defensive strategy creates greater “variance” in a team’s results: i.e., higher highs, and lower lows. Such variance in turn creates a greater potential for being upset, on that one night in four or five when the other team is just sinking everything from outside.
That concern is well-placed. But, as Oliver also goes on to argue in his book, when you get to postseason play a team is not best served by going away from what it does best or trying to implement a different style of play or strategy. It’s better to concentrate on doing what you do best as well as possible rather than worry about the possibility that the other team might come up with a perfect arrow striking your Achilles’ heel.
The Wisconsin Badgers might not quite have played their perfect game Sunday afternoon in Syracuse, but they came close, fueled (of course) by outstanding outside shooting. It’s important to understand that the open shots Clayton Hanson in particular got were exactly the sort of shots that Carolina’s defensive principles tend to concede, shots created by looking inside and excellent ball movement.
Equally impressive was the outstanding play of Alando Tucker in the paint, who gave a variety of Tar Heel defenders fits. Add in some inspired shooting and driving by Kammron Taylor off the bench and the Tar Heels had three outstanding individual performances from the Badgers to overcome Sunday. The result? Improbably, Wisconsin was able to stay in this game right until the end, even though Carolina largely got the tempo it wanted and even though the Tar Heels played quite fluently themselves on the offensive end.
Indeed, Carolina needed (at least) five distinct stretches of inspired play in the second half to answer Wisconsin’s 16-0 run, rebound from a five point deficit, and then hold on to close the game out:
* Roy Williams’ decision to apply full-court pressure early in the second half after a made Sean May free throw yielded immediate dividends, as Jackie Manuel intercepted a poor Badger pass to set Rashad McCants up for the go-ahead three-pointer and bring Tar Heel fans back into the game.
* A few minutes later, after Raymond Felton had to go to the bench with a turned ankle, Carolina scored on three consecutive possessions, twice off pretty feeds from Sean May to Jawad Williams, to maintain a working lead during a time when Wisconsin was finding a good offensive flow as well.
* The Tar Heels then had to come up with stops on three separate Badger possessions in which the Big Ten outfit might have taken the lead between the five minute and three minute marks. The Tar Heels got a big hoop from Sean May to push the lead to 74-71 at a time when it felt like the next basket was essential for momentum, then got big free throws from Marvin Williams and then May to push the lead to 78-73 with just under two minutes to play.
* Carolina also needed a double-dose of heroics from Rashad McCants, who proved he still knows where the Superman cape is in his closet: first, with a block off of Hanson’s jumper (the first time Hanson appeared to hunt his own shot rather than simply waiting for the ball to get to him within Wisconsin’s offense), and second, with the clutch top-of-the-key three-pointer with a minute to play to give Carolina an 81-78 lead.
* Last but certainly not least, the Tar Heels needed to make free throws in the final minute. Raymond Felton made Bo Ryan pay for his slightly surprising decision to go into foul mode rather than play straight up defense down three with 56 seconds to play, sinking six consecutive free throws. As a result, Wisconsin never got the chance Villanova had Friday night, to have the ball in the final seconds with a chance to tie. As we saw in the other regional finals this weekend, that is a very, very good thing.
That’s a big-time performance in the mental toughness department, and it’s why these North Carolina Tar Heels so thoroughly deserve to be going to the Final Four. Five (long) years ago when Bill Guthridge’s much-maligned team erased a disappointing regular season with a thrilling run through the South Regional, I remember thinking that of all the Final Fours Carolina had ever been to, that one meant the most in terms of the sheer satisfaction I felt in seeing that group of players make something really good happen for themselves.
Well, the buzzer sounded in Syracuse Sunday afternoon, and back came that not-quite-forgotten rush of emotion, the kind where you want to high-five and hug your neighbor at the same time. The 2000 tournament run rectified just one frustrating season, but what happened Sunday night was even more meaningful and emotional given what the bulk of this team lived through three seasons, two seasons, and even one season ago. (In the inevitable contrast between the 8-20 season and off-court chaos on one hand and reaching the Final Four on the other, it’s tempting to forget what a long journey it is in basketball terms for a team to go from being 19-11 to being 31-4 just a year later.)
Yet make no mistake: while everyone associated with Carolina basketball has had St. Louis in the back of their minds, all year, it wasn’t preordained that it would happen. Having great players and a great coach isn’t enough to reach a Final Four -- you have to go out and get it done, on the court, by making the critical plays at the critical times.
That’s what the Tar Heels did Sunday, against an excellent Wisconsin team that gave an effort that would have beaten many, many high-caliber clubs. Their reward? Sean May collecting the regional MVP award, Raymond Felton getting his named chanted by happy Carolina fans who thought he should have made the all-region team, Marvin Williams hearing it from Tar Heel fans unsure whether to go with the traditional “three more years” or the more realistic “one more year,” Roy Williams being surrounded by photographers as he came to greet his wife Wanda after the game, and best of all, senior Melvin Scott wielding the scissors for the final snip that brought down the net in front of the UNC bench. (Jawad Williams did the honors on the other end.)
A great day, and a thoroughly deserved one as well. After everything the UNC’s program has been through since the last Sunday like this half a decade ago, there is reasonable ground for fans to say, “well done, anything that happens from here on out is gravy.”
That’s an understandable and I dare say healthy stance for fans to take, but I don’t think that’s how the coaches and players on this team will be thinking, once they’ve had time to properly enjoy this step along their journey. This team wants to win the national championship, and believes that they should have the chance next Monday night to prove they are the best team in the nation.
Doing so will require duplicating or bettering their Sunday performance against another tough Big Ten opponent in Michigan State, in a rematch of the 1957 national semifinal. Pundits will probably make the Tar Heels the “favorite” in that game, but arguably the Spartans own the most impressive pair of wins in the tournament, having knocked out Duke and Kentucky back-to-back in a manner that shows incredible resilience.
So get prepared for another tense tournament encounter come Saturday night. There will be a whole week for coaches, writers, and fans to ponder match-ups and tactics, but for the moment it should be enough to express two simple -- but not easily granted -- wishes for next weekend: First, that these Tar Heels enjoy every minute of the week ahead; and second, that they can collectively find the frame of mind that will allow them to give a performance that does themselves and their aspirations justice next Saturday night.
By Thad Williamson - Inside Carolina
SYRACUSE, N.Y. --- For years, the most salient criticism of Dean Smith’s core defensive system has focused on its perceived vulnerability to the three-point shot. When you employ a trap, or when you prioritize helping against the drive or helping a post defender down low over staying glued to your man at all times, shooters on occasion are going to be open.
Statistically speaking, over a large enough number of games this system works well. It is not the case that Carolina’s opponents over the years have (on aggregate) shot an inordinately high percentage from three-point range, and in a number of big games (such as the 1995 regional final victory over Kentucky), Carolina’s tactics baited opponents into simply shooting themselves out of the game. Moreover, in normal years Carolina’s opponents, tending to rely on a higher percentage of outside shots, have not gotten to the foul line nearly as much as the Tar Heels themselves.
But winning single elimination basketball tournaments involves not compiling the best results over a representative sample of games between two teams, but winning six individual games, with no room for error. The concern, then, (discussed briefly in the February issue of the IC Magazine and more extensively in Dean Oliver’s interesting book "Basketball on Paper"), is that the defensive strategy creates greater “variance” in a team’s results: i.e., higher highs, and lower lows. Such variance in turn creates a greater potential for being upset, on that one night in four or five when the other team is just sinking everything from outside.
That concern is well-placed. But, as Oliver also goes on to argue in his book, when you get to postseason play a team is not best served by going away from what it does best or trying to implement a different style of play or strategy. It’s better to concentrate on doing what you do best as well as possible rather than worry about the possibility that the other team might come up with a perfect arrow striking your Achilles’ heel.
The Wisconsin Badgers might not quite have played their perfect game Sunday afternoon in Syracuse, but they came close, fueled (of course) by outstanding outside shooting. It’s important to understand that the open shots Clayton Hanson in particular got were exactly the sort of shots that Carolina’s defensive principles tend to concede, shots created by looking inside and excellent ball movement.
Equally impressive was the outstanding play of Alando Tucker in the paint, who gave a variety of Tar Heel defenders fits. Add in some inspired shooting and driving by Kammron Taylor off the bench and the Tar Heels had three outstanding individual performances from the Badgers to overcome Sunday. The result? Improbably, Wisconsin was able to stay in this game right until the end, even though Carolina largely got the tempo it wanted and even though the Tar Heels played quite fluently themselves on the offensive end.
Indeed, Carolina needed (at least) five distinct stretches of inspired play in the second half to answer Wisconsin’s 16-0 run, rebound from a five point deficit, and then hold on to close the game out:
* Roy Williams’ decision to apply full-court pressure early in the second half after a made Sean May free throw yielded immediate dividends, as Jackie Manuel intercepted a poor Badger pass to set Rashad McCants up for the go-ahead three-pointer and bring Tar Heel fans back into the game.
* A few minutes later, after Raymond Felton had to go to the bench with a turned ankle, Carolina scored on three consecutive possessions, twice off pretty feeds from Sean May to Jawad Williams, to maintain a working lead during a time when Wisconsin was finding a good offensive flow as well.
* The Tar Heels then had to come up with stops on three separate Badger possessions in which the Big Ten outfit might have taken the lead between the five minute and three minute marks. The Tar Heels got a big hoop from Sean May to push the lead to 74-71 at a time when it felt like the next basket was essential for momentum, then got big free throws from Marvin Williams and then May to push the lead to 78-73 with just under two minutes to play.
* Carolina also needed a double-dose of heroics from Rashad McCants, who proved he still knows where the Superman cape is in his closet: first, with a block off of Hanson’s jumper (the first time Hanson appeared to hunt his own shot rather than simply waiting for the ball to get to him within Wisconsin’s offense), and second, with the clutch top-of-the-key three-pointer with a minute to play to give Carolina an 81-78 lead.
* Last but certainly not least, the Tar Heels needed to make free throws in the final minute. Raymond Felton made Bo Ryan pay for his slightly surprising decision to go into foul mode rather than play straight up defense down three with 56 seconds to play, sinking six consecutive free throws. As a result, Wisconsin never got the chance Villanova had Friday night, to have the ball in the final seconds with a chance to tie. As we saw in the other regional finals this weekend, that is a very, very good thing.
That’s a big-time performance in the mental toughness department, and it’s why these North Carolina Tar Heels so thoroughly deserve to be going to the Final Four. Five (long) years ago when Bill Guthridge’s much-maligned team erased a disappointing regular season with a thrilling run through the South Regional, I remember thinking that of all the Final Fours Carolina had ever been to, that one meant the most in terms of the sheer satisfaction I felt in seeing that group of players make something really good happen for themselves.
Well, the buzzer sounded in Syracuse Sunday afternoon, and back came that not-quite-forgotten rush of emotion, the kind where you want to high-five and hug your neighbor at the same time. The 2000 tournament run rectified just one frustrating season, but what happened Sunday night was even more meaningful and emotional given what the bulk of this team lived through three seasons, two seasons, and even one season ago. (In the inevitable contrast between the 8-20 season and off-court chaos on one hand and reaching the Final Four on the other, it’s tempting to forget what a long journey it is in basketball terms for a team to go from being 19-11 to being 31-4 just a year later.)
Yet make no mistake: while everyone associated with Carolina basketball has had St. Louis in the back of their minds, all year, it wasn’t preordained that it would happen. Having great players and a great coach isn’t enough to reach a Final Four -- you have to go out and get it done, on the court, by making the critical plays at the critical times.
That’s what the Tar Heels did Sunday, against an excellent Wisconsin team that gave an effort that would have beaten many, many high-caliber clubs. Their reward? Sean May collecting the regional MVP award, Raymond Felton getting his named chanted by happy Carolina fans who thought he should have made the all-region team, Marvin Williams hearing it from Tar Heel fans unsure whether to go with the traditional “three more years” or the more realistic “one more year,” Roy Williams being surrounded by photographers as he came to greet his wife Wanda after the game, and best of all, senior Melvin Scott wielding the scissors for the final snip that brought down the net in front of the UNC bench. (Jawad Williams did the honors on the other end.)
A great day, and a thoroughly deserved one as well. After everything the UNC’s program has been through since the last Sunday like this half a decade ago, there is reasonable ground for fans to say, “well done, anything that happens from here on out is gravy.”
That’s an understandable and I dare say healthy stance for fans to take, but I don’t think that’s how the coaches and players on this team will be thinking, once they’ve had time to properly enjoy this step along their journey. This team wants to win the national championship, and believes that they should have the chance next Monday night to prove they are the best team in the nation.
Doing so will require duplicating or bettering their Sunday performance against another tough Big Ten opponent in Michigan State, in a rematch of the 1957 national semifinal. Pundits will probably make the Tar Heels the “favorite” in that game, but arguably the Spartans own the most impressive pair of wins in the tournament, having knocked out Duke and Kentucky back-to-back in a manner that shows incredible resilience.
So get prepared for another tense tournament encounter come Saturday night. There will be a whole week for coaches, writers, and fans to ponder match-ups and tactics, but for the moment it should be enough to express two simple -- but not easily granted -- wishes for next weekend: First, that these Tar Heels enjoy every minute of the week ahead; and second, that they can collectively find the frame of mind that will allow them to give a performance that does themselves and their aspirations justice next Saturday night.
A Well-Deserved Win
By Thad Williamson - Inside Carolina
SYRACUSE, N.Y. --- For years, the most salient criticism of Dean Smith’s core defensive system has focused on its perceived vulnerability to the three-point shot. When you employ a trap, or when you prioritize helping against the drive or helping a post defender down low over staying glued to your man at all times, shooters on occasion are going to be open.
Statistically speaking, over a large enough number of games this system works well. It is not the case that Carolina’s opponents over the years have (on aggregate) shot an inordinately high percentage from three-point range, and in a number of big games (such as the 1995 regional final victory over Kentucky), Carolina’s tactics baited opponents into simply shooting themselves out of the game. Moreover, in normal years Carolina’s opponents, tending to rely on a higher percentage of outside shots, have not gotten to the foul line nearly as much as the Tar Heels themselves.
But winning single elimination basketball tournaments involves not compiling the best results over a representative sample of games between two teams, but winning six individual games, with no room for error. The concern, then, (discussed briefly in the February issue of the IC Magazine and more extensively in Dean Oliver’s interesting book "Basketball on Paper"), is that the defensive strategy creates greater “variance” in a team’s results: i.e., higher highs, and lower lows. Such variance in turn creates a greater potential for being upset, on that one night in four or five when the other team is just sinking everything from outside.
That concern is well-placed. But, as Oliver also goes on to argue in his book, when you get to postseason play a team is not best served by going away from what it does best or trying to implement a different style of play or strategy. It’s better to concentrate on doing what you do best as well as possible rather than worry about the possibility that the other team might come up with a perfect arrow striking your Achilles’ heel.
The Wisconsin Badgers might not quite have played their perfect game Sunday afternoon in Syracuse, but they came close, fueled (of course) by outstanding outside shooting. It’s important to understand that the open shots Clayton Hanson in particular got were exactly the sort of shots that Carolina’s defensive principles tend to concede, shots created by looking inside and excellent ball movement.
Equally impressive was the outstanding play of Alando Tucker in the paint, who gave a variety of Tar Heel defenders fits. Add in some inspired shooting and driving by Kammron Taylor off the bench and the Tar Heels had three outstanding individual performances from the Badgers to overcome Sunday. The result? Improbably, Wisconsin was able to stay in this game right until the end, even though Carolina largely got the tempo it wanted and even though the Tar Heels played quite fluently themselves on the offensive end.
Indeed, Carolina needed (at least) five distinct stretches of inspired play in the second half to answer Wisconsin’s 16-0 run, rebound from a five point deficit, and then hold on to close the game out:
* Roy Williams’ decision to apply full-court pressure early in the second half after a made Sean May free throw yielded immediate dividends, as Jackie Manuel intercepted a poor Badger pass to set Rashad McCants up for the go-ahead three-pointer and bring Tar Heel fans back into the game.
* A few minutes later, after Raymond Felton had to go to the bench with a turned ankle, Carolina scored on three consecutive possessions, twice off pretty feeds from Sean May to Jawad Williams, to maintain a working lead during a time when Wisconsin was finding a good offensive flow as well.
* The Tar Heels then had to come up with stops on three separate Badger possessions in which the Big Ten outfit might have taken the lead between the five minute and three minute marks. The Tar Heels got a big hoop from Sean May to push the lead to 74-71 at a time when it felt like the next basket was essential for momentum, then got big free throws from Marvin Williams and then May to push the lead to 78-73 with just under two minutes to play.
* Carolina also needed a double-dose of heroics from Rashad McCants, who proved he still knows where the Superman cape is in his closet: first, with a block off of Hanson’s jumper (the first time Hanson appeared to hunt his own shot rather than simply waiting for the ball to get to him within Wisconsin’s offense), and second, with the clutch top-of-the-key three-pointer with a minute to play to give Carolina an 81-78 lead.
* Last but certainly not least, the Tar Heels needed to make free throws in the final minute. Raymond Felton made Bo Ryan pay for his slightly surprising decision to go into foul mode rather than play straight up defense down three with 56 seconds to play, sinking six consecutive free throws. As a result, Wisconsin never got the chance Villanova had Friday night, to have the ball in the final seconds with a chance to tie. As we saw in the other regional finals this weekend, that is a very, very good thing.
That’s a big-time performance in the mental toughness department, and it’s why these North Carolina Tar Heels so thoroughly deserve to be going to the Final Four. Five (long) years ago when Bill Guthridge’s much-maligned team erased a disappointing regular season with a thrilling run through the South Regional, I remember thinking that of all the Final Fours Carolina had ever been to, that one meant the most in terms of the sheer satisfaction I felt in seeing that group of players make something really good happen for themselves.
Well, the buzzer sounded in Syracuse Sunday afternoon, and back came that not-quite-forgotten rush of emotion, the kind where you want to high-five and hug your neighbor at the same time. The 2000 tournament run rectified just one frustrating season, but what happened Sunday night was even more meaningful and emotional given what the bulk of this team lived through three seasons, two seasons, and even one season ago. (In the inevitable contrast between the 8-20 season and off-court chaos on one hand and reaching the Final Four on the other, it’s tempting to forget what a long journey it is in basketball terms for a team to go from being 19-11 to being 31-4 just a year later.)
Yet make no mistake: while everyone associated with Carolina basketball has had St. Louis in the back of their minds, all year, it wasn’t preordained that it would happen. Having great players and a great coach isn’t enough to reach a Final Four -- you have to go out and get it done, on the court, by making the critical plays at the critical times.
That’s what the Tar Heels did Sunday, against an excellent Wisconsin team that gave an effort that would have beaten many, many high-caliber clubs. Their reward? Sean May collecting the regional MVP award, Raymond Felton getting his named chanted by happy Carolina fans who thought he should have made the all-region team, Marvin Williams hearing it from Tar Heel fans unsure whether to go with the traditional “three more years” or the more realistic “one more year,” Roy Williams being surrounded by photographers as he came to greet his wife Wanda after the game, and best of all, senior Melvin Scott wielding the scissors for the final snip that brought down the net in front of the UNC bench. (Jawad Williams did the honors on the other end.)
A great day, and a thoroughly deserved one as well. After everything the UNC’s program has been through since the last Sunday like this half a decade ago, there is reasonable ground for fans to say, “well done, anything that happens from here on out is gravy.”
That’s an understandable and I dare say healthy stance for fans to take, but I don’t think that’s how the coaches and players on this team will be thinking, once they’ve had time to properly enjoy this step along their journey. This team wants to win the national championship, and believes that they should have the chance next Monday night to prove they are the best team in the nation.
Doing so will require duplicating or bettering their Sunday performance against another tough Big Ten opponent in Michigan State, in a rematch of the 1957 national semifinal. Pundits will probably make the Tar Heels the “favorite” in that game, but arguably the Spartans own the most impressive pair of wins in the tournament, having knocked out Duke and Kentucky back-to-back in a manner that shows incredible resilience.
So get prepared for another tense tournament encounter come Saturday night. There will be a whole week for coaches, writers, and fans to ponder match-ups and tactics, but for the moment it should be enough to express two simple -- but not easily granted -- wishes for next weekend: First, that these Tar Heels enjoy every minute of the week ahead; and second, that they can collectively find the frame of mind that will allow them to give a performance that does themselves and their aspirations justice next Saturday night.
By Thad Williamson - Inside Carolina
SYRACUSE, N.Y. --- For years, the most salient criticism of Dean Smith’s core defensive system has focused on its perceived vulnerability to the three-point shot. When you employ a trap, or when you prioritize helping against the drive or helping a post defender down low over staying glued to your man at all times, shooters on occasion are going to be open.
Statistically speaking, over a large enough number of games this system works well. It is not the case that Carolina’s opponents over the years have (on aggregate) shot an inordinately high percentage from three-point range, and in a number of big games (such as the 1995 regional final victory over Kentucky), Carolina’s tactics baited opponents into simply shooting themselves out of the game. Moreover, in normal years Carolina’s opponents, tending to rely on a higher percentage of outside shots, have not gotten to the foul line nearly as much as the Tar Heels themselves.
But winning single elimination basketball tournaments involves not compiling the best results over a representative sample of games between two teams, but winning six individual games, with no room for error. The concern, then, (discussed briefly in the February issue of the IC Magazine and more extensively in Dean Oliver’s interesting book "Basketball on Paper"), is that the defensive strategy creates greater “variance” in a team’s results: i.e., higher highs, and lower lows. Such variance in turn creates a greater potential for being upset, on that one night in four or five when the other team is just sinking everything from outside.
That concern is well-placed. But, as Oliver also goes on to argue in his book, when you get to postseason play a team is not best served by going away from what it does best or trying to implement a different style of play or strategy. It’s better to concentrate on doing what you do best as well as possible rather than worry about the possibility that the other team might come up with a perfect arrow striking your Achilles’ heel.
The Wisconsin Badgers might not quite have played their perfect game Sunday afternoon in Syracuse, but they came close, fueled (of course) by outstanding outside shooting. It’s important to understand that the open shots Clayton Hanson in particular got were exactly the sort of shots that Carolina’s defensive principles tend to concede, shots created by looking inside and excellent ball movement.
Equally impressive was the outstanding play of Alando Tucker in the paint, who gave a variety of Tar Heel defenders fits. Add in some inspired shooting and driving by Kammron Taylor off the bench and the Tar Heels had three outstanding individual performances from the Badgers to overcome Sunday. The result? Improbably, Wisconsin was able to stay in this game right until the end, even though Carolina largely got the tempo it wanted and even though the Tar Heels played quite fluently themselves on the offensive end.
Indeed, Carolina needed (at least) five distinct stretches of inspired play in the second half to answer Wisconsin’s 16-0 run, rebound from a five point deficit, and then hold on to close the game out:
* Roy Williams’ decision to apply full-court pressure early in the second half after a made Sean May free throw yielded immediate dividends, as Jackie Manuel intercepted a poor Badger pass to set Rashad McCants up for the go-ahead three-pointer and bring Tar Heel fans back into the game.
* A few minutes later, after Raymond Felton had to go to the bench with a turned ankle, Carolina scored on three consecutive possessions, twice off pretty feeds from Sean May to Jawad Williams, to maintain a working lead during a time when Wisconsin was finding a good offensive flow as well.
* The Tar Heels then had to come up with stops on three separate Badger possessions in which the Big Ten outfit might have taken the lead between the five minute and three minute marks. The Tar Heels got a big hoop from Sean May to push the lead to 74-71 at a time when it felt like the next basket was essential for momentum, then got big free throws from Marvin Williams and then May to push the lead to 78-73 with just under two minutes to play.
* Carolina also needed a double-dose of heroics from Rashad McCants, who proved he still knows where the Superman cape is in his closet: first, with a block off of Hanson’s jumper (the first time Hanson appeared to hunt his own shot rather than simply waiting for the ball to get to him within Wisconsin’s offense), and second, with the clutch top-of-the-key three-pointer with a minute to play to give Carolina an 81-78 lead.
* Last but certainly not least, the Tar Heels needed to make free throws in the final minute. Raymond Felton made Bo Ryan pay for his slightly surprising decision to go into foul mode rather than play straight up defense down three with 56 seconds to play, sinking six consecutive free throws. As a result, Wisconsin never got the chance Villanova had Friday night, to have the ball in the final seconds with a chance to tie. As we saw in the other regional finals this weekend, that is a very, very good thing.
That’s a big-time performance in the mental toughness department, and it’s why these North Carolina Tar Heels so thoroughly deserve to be going to the Final Four. Five (long) years ago when Bill Guthridge’s much-maligned team erased a disappointing regular season with a thrilling run through the South Regional, I remember thinking that of all the Final Fours Carolina had ever been to, that one meant the most in terms of the sheer satisfaction I felt in seeing that group of players make something really good happen for themselves.
Well, the buzzer sounded in Syracuse Sunday afternoon, and back came that not-quite-forgotten rush of emotion, the kind where you want to high-five and hug your neighbor at the same time. The 2000 tournament run rectified just one frustrating season, but what happened Sunday night was even more meaningful and emotional given what the bulk of this team lived through three seasons, two seasons, and even one season ago. (In the inevitable contrast between the 8-20 season and off-court chaos on one hand and reaching the Final Four on the other, it’s tempting to forget what a long journey it is in basketball terms for a team to go from being 19-11 to being 31-4 just a year later.)
Yet make no mistake: while everyone associated with Carolina basketball has had St. Louis in the back of their minds, all year, it wasn’t preordained that it would happen. Having great players and a great coach isn’t enough to reach a Final Four -- you have to go out and get it done, on the court, by making the critical plays at the critical times.
That’s what the Tar Heels did Sunday, against an excellent Wisconsin team that gave an effort that would have beaten many, many high-caliber clubs. Their reward? Sean May collecting the regional MVP award, Raymond Felton getting his named chanted by happy Carolina fans who thought he should have made the all-region team, Marvin Williams hearing it from Tar Heel fans unsure whether to go with the traditional “three more years” or the more realistic “one more year,” Roy Williams being surrounded by photographers as he came to greet his wife Wanda after the game, and best of all, senior Melvin Scott wielding the scissors for the final snip that brought down the net in front of the UNC bench. (Jawad Williams did the honors on the other end.)
A great day, and a thoroughly deserved one as well. After everything the UNC’s program has been through since the last Sunday like this half a decade ago, there is reasonable ground for fans to say, “well done, anything that happens from here on out is gravy.”
That’s an understandable and I dare say healthy stance for fans to take, but I don’t think that’s how the coaches and players on this team will be thinking, once they’ve had time to properly enjoy this step along their journey. This team wants to win the national championship, and believes that they should have the chance next Monday night to prove they are the best team in the nation.
Doing so will require duplicating or bettering their Sunday performance against another tough Big Ten opponent in Michigan State, in a rematch of the 1957 national semifinal. Pundits will probably make the Tar Heels the “favorite” in that game, but arguably the Spartans own the most impressive pair of wins in the tournament, having knocked out Duke and Kentucky back-to-back in a manner that shows incredible resilience.
So get prepared for another tense tournament encounter come Saturday night. There will be a whole week for coaches, writers, and fans to ponder match-ups and tactics, but for the moment it should be enough to express two simple -- but not easily granted -- wishes for next weekend: First, that these Tar Heels enjoy every minute of the week ahead; and second, that they can collectively find the frame of mind that will allow them to give a performance that does themselves and their aspirations justice next Saturday night.
From Opinion Journal:
Selective Restraint
Liberals cheered when Janet Reno defied the courts to seize Elian Gonzalez.
By John Fund
The sad case of Terri Schiavo has raised passions not seen since five years ago. Then another bitterly divided family argued in Florida courts over someone who couldn't speak on his own behalf: Elian Gonzalez.
In both cases, those who were unhappy with the courts' decisions strained to assert the federal government's power to produce a different outcome. The difference is that in Mrs. Schiavo's case, Congress backed off after passing a bill that merely asked a federal court to hear the case from scratch, something that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to do. By contrast, those who wanted the federal government to intervene in Elian Gonzalez's case went all the way, supporting a predawn armed federal raid on the morning before Easter to seize the 6-year-old boy despite a federal appeals court's refusal to order his surrender.
Both cases were marked with hypocrisy and political posturing galore. Both times some conservative Republicans talked about issuing subpoenas to compel the person at the center of the case to appear before Congress; they swiftly backed down when public opinion failed to support their stunt. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, argued that by opposing Elian's return to his father in communist Cuba, conservatives were abandoning the principle that "the state should not supersede the parents' wishes." In the case of Terri Schiavo, many conservatives who normally support spousal rights decided that Michael Schiavo's decision to abandon his marital vows while at the same time refusing to divorce his wife rendered him unfit to override the wishes of his wife's parents to have her cared for.
But liberals have gotten off easy for some of the somersaulting arguments they have made on behalf of judicial independence and states' rights to justify their position that Terri Schiavo should not be saved. Many made the opposite arguments in the Elian Gonzalez case.
Elian was plucked from the ocean off the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving Day 1999. after his mother died in an ill-fated attempt to bring him to freedom. Before he became a political football and Fidel Castro demanded his return, the Immigration and Naturalization Service granted him immigration "parole," which gave him the right to live in the U.S. for one year until his status was determined. Because Elian was underage, his fate would therefore be decided by local family courts. On Dec. 1, the INS issued a statement saying, "Although the INS has no role in the family custody decision process, we have discussed the case with the State of Florida officials who have confirmed that the issue of legal custody must be decided by its state court."
Then the Clinton administration reversed course after protests from the Castro regime reached a fever pitch. On Dec. 9, the INS declared its previous position "a mistake" and said that state courts would not have jurisdiction in Elian's case. They claimed that because Elain was taken directly to a hospital he was therefore never formally paroled into the U.S.--even though he was then turned over to his Miami relatives rather than the INS. "Technically, he was not paroled in the usual sense," said a Justice Department spokesman. But she could come up with no previous case in which a Cuban refugee had had his parole revoked and then had the INS move to return him to Cuba.
But it quickly became clear that was the INS's intent. Over the Christmas holidays the agency dispatched agents to Cuba to interview Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. After the interview, Mr. Gonzalez told reporters the agents and an accompanying U.S. diplomat had assured him Elian would be returned. The Clinton administration disputed those statements, although one of the government officials later privately acknowledged they had been made. Nonetheless, INS bureaucrats in Washington quickly determined that a man who had abandoned Elian and his mom for another woman was a "fit parent" who could "properly care for the child in Cuba." No public consideration was given to the fact that his father, a member of the Communist Party, might have been coerced.
If a state court had been allowed to hear the custody case, INS officials would not have been able to testify as to what Mr. Gonzalez told them to support his claim because it would have been hearsay. He would have had to come to the U.S. to testify on his own, subject to cross-examination. Even if the state court had granted him custody, it would have had to decide whether it was in the child's best interest to be returned to Cuba.
That's what Judge Rosa Rodriguez of Florida Family Court, complying with the original INS ruling, tried to do when she ruled in early January 2000 that her court had jurisdiction over the boy and gave Elian's great-uncle legal authority to represent him. Her order contravened an INS ruling that only Elian's father could speak for the boy and that he should be immediately returned to Cuba. Attorney General Janet Reno than promptly declared that Judge Rodriguez's ruling had "no force or effect." At the same time, INS officials assured reporters that under no circumstances did they intend to seize Elian by force.
The stalemate continued for another three months. On Thursday, April 20, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--the same court that rejected the pleas of Terri Schiavo's parents last week--turned down the Justice Department's request to order Elian removed from the home of his Miami relatives. Moreover, the court expressed serious doubts about the Justice Department's reading of both the law and its own regulations, adding that Elian had made a "substantial case on the merits" of his claim. It further established a record that Elain, "although a young child, has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba."
The Reno Justice Department acted the next day to short-circuit a legal process that was clearly going against it. On Good Friday evening, after all courts had closed for the day, the department obtained a "search" warrant from a night-duty magistrate who was not familiar with the case, submitting a supporting affidavit that seriously distorted the facts. Armed with that dubious warrant, the INS's helmeted officers, assault rifles at the ready, burst into the home of Elian's relatives and snatched the screaming boy from a bedroom closet. Many local bystanders were tear-gassed even though they did nothing to block the raid. Elian was quickly returned to Cuba; because he was never able to meet with his lawyers a scheduled May 11 asylum hearing on his case in Atlanta became moot.
Of course, there are differences between the Gonzalez and Schiavo cases. But clearly many of the people who approved of dramatic federal intervention to return Elian to Cuba took a completely different tack when it came to the argument over saving Terri Schiavo. Rep. Frank makes a compelling argument that Congress took an extraordinary step when it met in special session to create a procedure whereby the federal courts could decide whether Ms. Schiavo's rights were being violated. He may have a point when he accuses Republicans of "trying to command judicial activism and dictate outcomes when they don't like" rulings. But where were Mr. Frank and other liberals when the Clinton administration decided to sidestep a federal appeals court and order an armed raid against Elian Gonzalez? While Mr. Frank allowed that the use of assault rifles in the Elian raid was "excessive" and "frightening," he also defended the Justice Department's view that "of course [agents] had to use force."
According to some reports, Gov. Jeb Bush considered seizing Mrs. Schiavo, Ã la Elian, and taking her to a hospital so she could be fed. But he did not do so. "I've consistently said that I can't go beyond what my powers are, and I'm not going to do it," the governor says. Janet Reno and the Clinton administration showed no such restraint when it came to Elian Gonzalez.
Selective Restraint
Liberals cheered when Janet Reno defied the courts to seize Elian Gonzalez.
By John Fund
The sad case of Terri Schiavo has raised passions not seen since five years ago. Then another bitterly divided family argued in Florida courts over someone who couldn't speak on his own behalf: Elian Gonzalez.
In both cases, those who were unhappy with the courts' decisions strained to assert the federal government's power to produce a different outcome. The difference is that in Mrs. Schiavo's case, Congress backed off after passing a bill that merely asked a federal court to hear the case from scratch, something that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to do. By contrast, those who wanted the federal government to intervene in Elian Gonzalez's case went all the way, supporting a predawn armed federal raid on the morning before Easter to seize the 6-year-old boy despite a federal appeals court's refusal to order his surrender.
Both cases were marked with hypocrisy and political posturing galore. Both times some conservative Republicans talked about issuing subpoenas to compel the person at the center of the case to appear before Congress; they swiftly backed down when public opinion failed to support their stunt. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, argued that by opposing Elian's return to his father in communist Cuba, conservatives were abandoning the principle that "the state should not supersede the parents' wishes." In the case of Terri Schiavo, many conservatives who normally support spousal rights decided that Michael Schiavo's decision to abandon his marital vows while at the same time refusing to divorce his wife rendered him unfit to override the wishes of his wife's parents to have her cared for.
But liberals have gotten off easy for some of the somersaulting arguments they have made on behalf of judicial independence and states' rights to justify their position that Terri Schiavo should not be saved. Many made the opposite arguments in the Elian Gonzalez case.
Elian was plucked from the ocean off the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving Day 1999. after his mother died in an ill-fated attempt to bring him to freedom. Before he became a political football and Fidel Castro demanded his return, the Immigration and Naturalization Service granted him immigration "parole," which gave him the right to live in the U.S. for one year until his status was determined. Because Elian was underage, his fate would therefore be decided by local family courts. On Dec. 1, the INS issued a statement saying, "Although the INS has no role in the family custody decision process, we have discussed the case with the State of Florida officials who have confirmed that the issue of legal custody must be decided by its state court."
Then the Clinton administration reversed course after protests from the Castro regime reached a fever pitch. On Dec. 9, the INS declared its previous position "a mistake" and said that state courts would not have jurisdiction in Elian's case. They claimed that because Elain was taken directly to a hospital he was therefore never formally paroled into the U.S.--even though he was then turned over to his Miami relatives rather than the INS. "Technically, he was not paroled in the usual sense," said a Justice Department spokesman. But she could come up with no previous case in which a Cuban refugee had had his parole revoked and then had the INS move to return him to Cuba.
But it quickly became clear that was the INS's intent. Over the Christmas holidays the agency dispatched agents to Cuba to interview Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. After the interview, Mr. Gonzalez told reporters the agents and an accompanying U.S. diplomat had assured him Elian would be returned. The Clinton administration disputed those statements, although one of the government officials later privately acknowledged they had been made. Nonetheless, INS bureaucrats in Washington quickly determined that a man who had abandoned Elian and his mom for another woman was a "fit parent" who could "properly care for the child in Cuba." No public consideration was given to the fact that his father, a member of the Communist Party, might have been coerced.
If a state court had been allowed to hear the custody case, INS officials would not have been able to testify as to what Mr. Gonzalez told them to support his claim because it would have been hearsay. He would have had to come to the U.S. to testify on his own, subject to cross-examination. Even if the state court had granted him custody, it would have had to decide whether it was in the child's best interest to be returned to Cuba.
That's what Judge Rosa Rodriguez of Florida Family Court, complying with the original INS ruling, tried to do when she ruled in early January 2000 that her court had jurisdiction over the boy and gave Elian's great-uncle legal authority to represent him. Her order contravened an INS ruling that only Elian's father could speak for the boy and that he should be immediately returned to Cuba. Attorney General Janet Reno than promptly declared that Judge Rodriguez's ruling had "no force or effect." At the same time, INS officials assured reporters that under no circumstances did they intend to seize Elian by force.
The stalemate continued for another three months. On Thursday, April 20, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--the same court that rejected the pleas of Terri Schiavo's parents last week--turned down the Justice Department's request to order Elian removed from the home of his Miami relatives. Moreover, the court expressed serious doubts about the Justice Department's reading of both the law and its own regulations, adding that Elian had made a "substantial case on the merits" of his claim. It further established a record that Elain, "although a young child, has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba."
The Reno Justice Department acted the next day to short-circuit a legal process that was clearly going against it. On Good Friday evening, after all courts had closed for the day, the department obtained a "search" warrant from a night-duty magistrate who was not familiar with the case, submitting a supporting affidavit that seriously distorted the facts. Armed with that dubious warrant, the INS's helmeted officers, assault rifles at the ready, burst into the home of Elian's relatives and snatched the screaming boy from a bedroom closet. Many local bystanders were tear-gassed even though they did nothing to block the raid. Elian was quickly returned to Cuba; because he was never able to meet with his lawyers a scheduled May 11 asylum hearing on his case in Atlanta became moot.
Of course, there are differences between the Gonzalez and Schiavo cases. But clearly many of the people who approved of dramatic federal intervention to return Elian to Cuba took a completely different tack when it came to the argument over saving Terri Schiavo. Rep. Frank makes a compelling argument that Congress took an extraordinary step when it met in special session to create a procedure whereby the federal courts could decide whether Ms. Schiavo's rights were being violated. He may have a point when he accuses Republicans of "trying to command judicial activism and dictate outcomes when they don't like" rulings. But where were Mr. Frank and other liberals when the Clinton administration decided to sidestep a federal appeals court and order an armed raid against Elian Gonzalez? While Mr. Frank allowed that the use of assault rifles in the Elian raid was "excessive" and "frightening," he also defended the Justice Department's view that "of course [agents] had to use force."
According to some reports, Gov. Jeb Bush considered seizing Mrs. Schiavo, Ã la Elian, and taking her to a hospital so she could be fed. But he did not do so. "I've consistently said that I can't go beyond what my powers are, and I'm not going to do it," the governor says. Janet Reno and the Clinton administration showed no such restraint when it came to Elian Gonzalez.
From The New York Times:
Morality and Reality
By David Brooks
The core belief that social conservatives bring to cases like Terri Schiavo's is that the value of each individual life is intrinsic. The value of a life doesn't depend upon what a person can physically do, experience or achieve. The life of a comatose person or a fetus has the same dignity and worth as the life of a fully functioning adult.
Social conservatives go on to say that if we make distinctions about the value of different lives, if we downgrade those who are physically alive but mentally incapacitated, if we say that some people can be more easily moved toward death than others, then the strong will prey upon the helpless, and the dignity of all our lives will be diminished.
The true bright line is not between lives, they say, but between life and death. The proper rule, as Robert P. George of Princeton puts it, should be, "Always to care, never to kill."
The weakness of the social conservative case is that for most of us, especially in these days of advanced medical technology, it is hard to ignore distinctions between different modes of living. In some hospital rooms, there are people living forms of existence that upon direct contact do seem even worse than death.
Moreover, most of us believe in transcendence, in life beyond this one. Therefore why is it so necessary to cling ferociously to this life? Why not allow the soul to ascend to whatever is in store for it?
The core belief that social liberals bring to cases like Ms. Schiavo's is that the quality of life is a fundamental human value. They don't emphasize the bright line between life and death; they describe a continuum between a fully lived life and a life that, by the sort of incapacity Terri Schiavo has suffered, is mere existence.
On one end of that continuum are those fortunate enough to be able to live fully - to decide and act, to experience the world and be free. On the other end are those who, tragically, can do none of these things, and who are merely existing.
Social liberals warn against vitalism, the elevation of physical existence over other values. They say it is up to each individual or family to draw their own line to define when life passes to mere existence.
The central weakness of the liberal case is that it is morally thin. Once you say that it is up to individuals or families to draw their own lines separating life from existence, and reasonable people will differ, then you are taking a fundamental issue out of the realm of morality and into the realm of relativism and mere taste.
You are saying, as liberals do say, that society should be neutral and allow people to make their own choices. You are saying, as liberals do say, that we should be tolerant and nonjudgmental toward people who make different choices.
What begins as an appealing notion - that life and death are joined by a continuum - becomes vapid mush, because we are all invited to punt when it comes time to do the hard job of standing up for common principles, arguing right and wrong, and judging those who make bad decisions.
You end up exactly where many liberals ended up this week, trying to shift arguments away from morality and on to process.
If you surveyed the avalanche of TV and print commentary that descended upon us this week, you found social conservatives would start the discussion with a moral argument about the sanctity of life, and then social liberals would immediately start talking about jurisdictions, legalisms, politics and procedures. They were more comfortable talking about at what level the decision should be taken than what the decision should be.
Then, if social conservatives tried to push their moral claims, you'd find liberals accusing them of turning this country into a theocracy - which is an effort to cast all moral arguments beyond the realm of polite conversation.
Once moral argument is abandoned, there are no ethical checks, no universal standards, and everything is left to the convenience and sentiments of the individual survivors.
What I'm describing here is the clash of two serious but flawed arguments. The socially conservative argument has tremendous moral force, but doesn't accord with the reality we see when we walk through a hospice. The socially liberal argument is pragmatic, but lacks moral force.
No wonder many of us feel agonized this week, betwixt and between, as that poor woman slowly dehydrates.
E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com
Morality and Reality
By David Brooks
The core belief that social conservatives bring to cases like Terri Schiavo's is that the value of each individual life is intrinsic. The value of a life doesn't depend upon what a person can physically do, experience or achieve. The life of a comatose person or a fetus has the same dignity and worth as the life of a fully functioning adult.
Social conservatives go on to say that if we make distinctions about the value of different lives, if we downgrade those who are physically alive but mentally incapacitated, if we say that some people can be more easily moved toward death than others, then the strong will prey upon the helpless, and the dignity of all our lives will be diminished.
The true bright line is not between lives, they say, but between life and death. The proper rule, as Robert P. George of Princeton puts it, should be, "Always to care, never to kill."
The weakness of the social conservative case is that for most of us, especially in these days of advanced medical technology, it is hard to ignore distinctions between different modes of living. In some hospital rooms, there are people living forms of existence that upon direct contact do seem even worse than death.
Moreover, most of us believe in transcendence, in life beyond this one. Therefore why is it so necessary to cling ferociously to this life? Why not allow the soul to ascend to whatever is in store for it?
The core belief that social liberals bring to cases like Ms. Schiavo's is that the quality of life is a fundamental human value. They don't emphasize the bright line between life and death; they describe a continuum between a fully lived life and a life that, by the sort of incapacity Terri Schiavo has suffered, is mere existence.
On one end of that continuum are those fortunate enough to be able to live fully - to decide and act, to experience the world and be free. On the other end are those who, tragically, can do none of these things, and who are merely existing.
Social liberals warn against vitalism, the elevation of physical existence over other values. They say it is up to each individual or family to draw their own line to define when life passes to mere existence.
The central weakness of the liberal case is that it is morally thin. Once you say that it is up to individuals or families to draw their own lines separating life from existence, and reasonable people will differ, then you are taking a fundamental issue out of the realm of morality and into the realm of relativism and mere taste.
You are saying, as liberals do say, that society should be neutral and allow people to make their own choices. You are saying, as liberals do say, that we should be tolerant and nonjudgmental toward people who make different choices.
What begins as an appealing notion - that life and death are joined by a continuum - becomes vapid mush, because we are all invited to punt when it comes time to do the hard job of standing up for common principles, arguing right and wrong, and judging those who make bad decisions.
You end up exactly where many liberals ended up this week, trying to shift arguments away from morality and on to process.
If you surveyed the avalanche of TV and print commentary that descended upon us this week, you found social conservatives would start the discussion with a moral argument about the sanctity of life, and then social liberals would immediately start talking about jurisdictions, legalisms, politics and procedures. They were more comfortable talking about at what level the decision should be taken than what the decision should be.
Then, if social conservatives tried to push their moral claims, you'd find liberals accusing them of turning this country into a theocracy - which is an effort to cast all moral arguments beyond the realm of polite conversation.
Once moral argument is abandoned, there are no ethical checks, no universal standards, and everything is left to the convenience and sentiments of the individual survivors.
What I'm describing here is the clash of two serious but flawed arguments. The socially conservative argument has tremendous moral force, but doesn't accord with the reality we see when we walk through a hospice. The socially liberal argument is pragmatic, but lacks moral force.
No wonder many of us feel agonized this week, betwixt and between, as that poor woman slowly dehydrates.
E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com
Sunday, March 27, 2005
St. Louis Bound! Heels Back In Final 4
By Andy Britt - Inside Carolina
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – North Carolina has come full circle. After a five-year hiatus that featured episodes of unprecedented frustration, the Tar Heels will return to the Final Four after knocking off Wisconsin, 88-82, for the Syracuse Regional championship at the Carrier Dome on Sunday.
The Tar Heels (31-4) got two free throws from Raymond Felton to extend their lead to seven points with 34.5 seconds left and finally finish off the pesky Badgers (25-9), which ended the regular season ranked 20th nationally.
“This is an unbelievable feeling,” said tournament MVP Sean May, who tallied game-highs with 29 points and 12 rebounds.
“Sean May is a great player,” said UW’s Mike Wilkinson, who drew a large part of the defensive assignment on May. “He uses his body well. When UNC gets the ball down there, he’s almost unstoppable.”
Along with May on the All-Tournament team was Rashad McCants (21 points), as well as Wisconsin’s Clayton Hanson (15 points, 5-for-8 3pt.) and Alando Tucker (25 points), and Randy Foye of Villanova.
Apparently, Felton’s 17 points and seven assists were not enough to impress the voters.
Carolina will face Michigan State in the national semifinals on Saturday at the Edward Jones Dome. Tip-off is scheduled for approximately 8:40 p.m., or 30 minutes following the conclusion of the Illinois-Louisville game.
But Sunday was no cushiony coronation for the top-seeded Tar Heels. Clinging to a 74-73 lead with 2:40 left to play, Felton went inside to Marvin Williams, who was fouled in the act of shooting by Wilkinson. Williams, an 85-percent free throw shooter, sank them both to put Carolina up by three.
Then on the Badgers’ next possession, McCants blocked a three-point attempt by Hanson. More importantly, the carom wound up right in McCants’ gut to give the ball back to UNC. Wilkinson then fouled May, who sank both to make it 78-73 with 1:30 remaining.
Then Tucker got free for an alley-oop slam that trimmed the lead back to three. But after the two teams exchanged three pointers – one by McCants and one by Badgers’ reserve Kammron Taylor, Wisconsin had fouls to give.
Felton’s six consecutive free throws down the stretch would seal Wisconsin’s fate.
“Sean was telling me to calm down, don’t worry about it and knock down those free throws,” Felton said.
Carolina started the game on a torrid shooting streak with May scoring the Tar Heels' first six points from point blank range. McCants was also hitting on all cylinders early seemingly scoring off the dribble with ease. The two combined for 26 first-half points, but when McCants missed shots on three straight possessions and May was held scoreless for the final 3:37 before intermission, Wisconsin took advantage with a 11-0 run as the two teams went to the locker room tied, 44-44.
“I jumped [McCants] a little bit when I took him out in the first half, and I jumped him again in the second half,” Roy Williams said. “But what you have is a mature basketball player, who took what I said. I did think it was important for everybody to play better than we did just before halftime.”
The Tar Heels, which led by 11 on two separate occasions, shot 59 percent from the floor in the first half despite missing their last five shots before the break.
“They made threes,” Roy Williams said. “They only made seven three-pointers in their last two games, but they made 11 today.”
The Badgers run continued into the start of the second half, when following a miss by May inside, Alando Tucker scored on a old-fashioned three-point play. Tucker made two more free throws to give Wisconsin its biggest lead of the game at 49-44.
But momentum quickly shifted to the Tar Heels when a bucket and a layup by May followed by a three and a reverse layup by McCants capped an 8-0 UNC run. After seeing his team’s lead disappear in just 40 seconds, Ryan was forced to call a timeout.
Then after a media timeout moments later, the Tar Heels were off and running again, scoring another six unanswered points over the next 1:46.
“They went on their run and we went on ours,” McCants said. “It’s very hard to keep us from scoring when we have our threats on the court.”
Still, the Badgers would not go away, keeping within striking distance until the game’s final minutes.
“I expected it to be tough here,” Roy Williams said. “Somebody said, ‘David almost beat Goliath last night' (referring to UNC’s 67-66 win over Villanova Friday night), but once you get to the Sweet 16, there are no Davids.”
No team has ever made as many reservations to the final weekend as Carolina. And of its NCAA record 16 appearances, UNC is headed to its seventh Final Four of the past 14 seasons.
So construction must now be complete on the UNC Basketball rebuilding project.
Surely the mountainous bump in the road, which claimed one coach, replaced three astonishing streaks, hung an 8-20 season record on the board and brought down the most consistent college program of the last 40 years, has been razed. In its place, a 21st century thruway designed to provide fans with years of smoother and more pleasurable travel.
“That’s what we talked about when we got here, helping this program come back to the top,” May said. “These emotions are indescribable.”
And just down the road is an opportunity, albeit a rigorous challenge, for Tar Heel Nation to claim to its fourth NCAA title and fifth national championship.
By Andy Britt - Inside Carolina
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – North Carolina has come full circle. After a five-year hiatus that featured episodes of unprecedented frustration, the Tar Heels will return to the Final Four after knocking off Wisconsin, 88-82, for the Syracuse Regional championship at the Carrier Dome on Sunday.
The Tar Heels (31-4) got two free throws from Raymond Felton to extend their lead to seven points with 34.5 seconds left and finally finish off the pesky Badgers (25-9), which ended the regular season ranked 20th nationally.
“This is an unbelievable feeling,” said tournament MVP Sean May, who tallied game-highs with 29 points and 12 rebounds.
“Sean May is a great player,” said UW’s Mike Wilkinson, who drew a large part of the defensive assignment on May. “He uses his body well. When UNC gets the ball down there, he’s almost unstoppable.”
Along with May on the All-Tournament team was Rashad McCants (21 points), as well as Wisconsin’s Clayton Hanson (15 points, 5-for-8 3pt.) and Alando Tucker (25 points), and Randy Foye of Villanova.
Apparently, Felton’s 17 points and seven assists were not enough to impress the voters.
Carolina will face Michigan State in the national semifinals on Saturday at the Edward Jones Dome. Tip-off is scheduled for approximately 8:40 p.m., or 30 minutes following the conclusion of the Illinois-Louisville game.
But Sunday was no cushiony coronation for the top-seeded Tar Heels. Clinging to a 74-73 lead with 2:40 left to play, Felton went inside to Marvin Williams, who was fouled in the act of shooting by Wilkinson. Williams, an 85-percent free throw shooter, sank them both to put Carolina up by three.
Then on the Badgers’ next possession, McCants blocked a three-point attempt by Hanson. More importantly, the carom wound up right in McCants’ gut to give the ball back to UNC. Wilkinson then fouled May, who sank both to make it 78-73 with 1:30 remaining.
Then Tucker got free for an alley-oop slam that trimmed the lead back to three. But after the two teams exchanged three pointers – one by McCants and one by Badgers’ reserve Kammron Taylor, Wisconsin had fouls to give.
Felton’s six consecutive free throws down the stretch would seal Wisconsin’s fate.
“Sean was telling me to calm down, don’t worry about it and knock down those free throws,” Felton said.
Carolina started the game on a torrid shooting streak with May scoring the Tar Heels' first six points from point blank range. McCants was also hitting on all cylinders early seemingly scoring off the dribble with ease. The two combined for 26 first-half points, but when McCants missed shots on three straight possessions and May was held scoreless for the final 3:37 before intermission, Wisconsin took advantage with a 11-0 run as the two teams went to the locker room tied, 44-44.
“I jumped [McCants] a little bit when I took him out in the first half, and I jumped him again in the second half,” Roy Williams said. “But what you have is a mature basketball player, who took what I said. I did think it was important for everybody to play better than we did just before halftime.”
The Tar Heels, which led by 11 on two separate occasions, shot 59 percent from the floor in the first half despite missing their last five shots before the break.
“They made threes,” Roy Williams said. “They only made seven three-pointers in their last two games, but they made 11 today.”
The Badgers run continued into the start of the second half, when following a miss by May inside, Alando Tucker scored on a old-fashioned three-point play. Tucker made two more free throws to give Wisconsin its biggest lead of the game at 49-44.
But momentum quickly shifted to the Tar Heels when a bucket and a layup by May followed by a three and a reverse layup by McCants capped an 8-0 UNC run. After seeing his team’s lead disappear in just 40 seconds, Ryan was forced to call a timeout.
Then after a media timeout moments later, the Tar Heels were off and running again, scoring another six unanswered points over the next 1:46.
“They went on their run and we went on ours,” McCants said. “It’s very hard to keep us from scoring when we have our threats on the court.”
Still, the Badgers would not go away, keeping within striking distance until the game’s final minutes.
“I expected it to be tough here,” Roy Williams said. “Somebody said, ‘David almost beat Goliath last night' (referring to UNC’s 67-66 win over Villanova Friday night), but once you get to the Sweet 16, there are no Davids.”
No team has ever made as many reservations to the final weekend as Carolina. And of its NCAA record 16 appearances, UNC is headed to its seventh Final Four of the past 14 seasons.
So construction must now be complete on the UNC Basketball rebuilding project.
Surely the mountainous bump in the road, which claimed one coach, replaced three astonishing streaks, hung an 8-20 season record on the board and brought down the most consistent college program of the last 40 years, has been razed. In its place, a 21st century thruway designed to provide fans with years of smoother and more pleasurable travel.
“That’s what we talked about when we got here, helping this program come back to the top,” May said. “These emotions are indescribable.”
And just down the road is an opportunity, albeit a rigorous challenge, for Tar Heel Nation to claim to its fourth NCAA title and fifth national championship.
U.N.C. 88, WISCONSIN 82
North Carolina Reaches Final Four
By The Associated Press
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Rashad McCants made the big plays down the stretch, Sean May dominated inside and North Carolina is back in the Final Four for the first time in five years.
McCants swished a clutch 3-pointer and had two huge blocks on the other end, leading the top-seeded Tar Heels to an 88-82 victory over Wisconsin on Sunday in the final of the Syracuse Regional.
May led North Carolina (31-4) with 29 points and 12 rebounds, and Raymond Felton added 15 points, including four free throws in the final minute to seal it. But it was McCants who did the most to end a marvelous run by the sixth-seeded Badgers (25-9) and send the Tar Heels to the Final Four for the first time since 2000.
With North Carolina clinging to a three-point lead, McCants jumped high to swat away a 3 by Clayton Hanson with about 2 minutes left, Hanson's only miss of the second half from beyond the arc. Later, when Kammron Taylor drove to the basket, McCants again was there to block the shot.
Wisconsin closed within three again on an alley-oop dunk by Alando Tucker before McCants made his 3-pointer, coming off a screen by Marvin Williams to give North Carolina an 81-75 lead. He finished with 21 points.
That proved to be enough, and when the final buzzer sounded, McCants and Felton spent several seconds embracing in the lane, while their teammates quickly donned hats that read "Syracuse Regional Champions." Coach Roy Williams advanced to the Final Four for the fifth time in his career; after four trips with Kansas, he's taking his alma mater in only his second season as coach of the Tar Heels.
One by one, coach Williams sent his players up a ladder to cut down nets on both ends of the court. He did the same when North Carolina clinched its first outright Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title since 1993, choosing to ignore any criticism for celebrating before the NCAA tournament.
No one could blame him this time.
Tucker scored 25 points for the Badgers, who never once tried to slow the pace. They scored more than 80 points for only the third time this season and the first since Dec. 27.
Still, they stayed close throughout, led by Tucker and the shooting of Hanson, a former walk-on. He scored 15 points -- all on 3s -- after averaging only 6.2 coming into the regional.
Hanson's final points came with 8:48 left, nailing a jumper after Mike Wilkinson passed out of a double team. That cut the Tar Heels' lead to 68-67, and although Wisconsin never led down the stretch, the margin never was greater than five until the final seconds.
Wilkinson scored from the baseline with 3:52 remaining to bring the Badgers within a single point, and after Felton clanged a 3-pointer off the rim, Wisconsin had a chance for the lead. But Taylor missed from the lane and May was there for the rebound, leading to two free throws from Marvin Williams to make it 76-73.
That's when Hanson tried again to tie it, and McCants made sure he didn't.
It was only fitting, since McCants likely gave up the most to help North Carolina become a better team. The leading scorer in the ACC last season as a sophomore, his average went down more than four points to 15.8 while May became the No. 1 offensive option.
The burly center certainly was that in this victory, shooting 13-of-19 to reach double figures for the 19th straight game. In 14 of those, he's also grabbed at least 10 rebounds, an incredible stretch that led to him being selected second-team All-America.
Notes: Wisconsin reserve C Greg Stiemsma scored two points in the first half, his first points since finishing with a career-high four against Michigan on Feb. 16. He was in for three minutes after playing less than one combined in the previous five. ... Tar Heels F Jawad Williams had two layups in less than a minute in the second half, both off passes from May, and finished with six points after totaling only three in the previous two games.
North Carolina Reaches Final Four
By The Associated Press
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Rashad McCants made the big plays down the stretch, Sean May dominated inside and North Carolina is back in the Final Four for the first time in five years.
McCants swished a clutch 3-pointer and had two huge blocks on the other end, leading the top-seeded Tar Heels to an 88-82 victory over Wisconsin on Sunday in the final of the Syracuse Regional.
May led North Carolina (31-4) with 29 points and 12 rebounds, and Raymond Felton added 15 points, including four free throws in the final minute to seal it. But it was McCants who did the most to end a marvelous run by the sixth-seeded Badgers (25-9) and send the Tar Heels to the Final Four for the first time since 2000.
With North Carolina clinging to a three-point lead, McCants jumped high to swat away a 3 by Clayton Hanson with about 2 minutes left, Hanson's only miss of the second half from beyond the arc. Later, when Kammron Taylor drove to the basket, McCants again was there to block the shot.
Wisconsin closed within three again on an alley-oop dunk by Alando Tucker before McCants made his 3-pointer, coming off a screen by Marvin Williams to give North Carolina an 81-75 lead. He finished with 21 points.
That proved to be enough, and when the final buzzer sounded, McCants and Felton spent several seconds embracing in the lane, while their teammates quickly donned hats that read "Syracuse Regional Champions." Coach Roy Williams advanced to the Final Four for the fifth time in his career; after four trips with Kansas, he's taking his alma mater in only his second season as coach of the Tar Heels.
One by one, coach Williams sent his players up a ladder to cut down nets on both ends of the court. He did the same when North Carolina clinched its first outright Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title since 1993, choosing to ignore any criticism for celebrating before the NCAA tournament.
No one could blame him this time.
Tucker scored 25 points for the Badgers, who never once tried to slow the pace. They scored more than 80 points for only the third time this season and the first since Dec. 27.
Still, they stayed close throughout, led by Tucker and the shooting of Hanson, a former walk-on. He scored 15 points -- all on 3s -- after averaging only 6.2 coming into the regional.
Hanson's final points came with 8:48 left, nailing a jumper after Mike Wilkinson passed out of a double team. That cut the Tar Heels' lead to 68-67, and although Wisconsin never led down the stretch, the margin never was greater than five until the final seconds.
Wilkinson scored from the baseline with 3:52 remaining to bring the Badgers within a single point, and after Felton clanged a 3-pointer off the rim, Wisconsin had a chance for the lead. But Taylor missed from the lane and May was there for the rebound, leading to two free throws from Marvin Williams to make it 76-73.
That's when Hanson tried again to tie it, and McCants made sure he didn't.
It was only fitting, since McCants likely gave up the most to help North Carolina become a better team. The leading scorer in the ACC last season as a sophomore, his average went down more than four points to 15.8 while May became the No. 1 offensive option.
The burly center certainly was that in this victory, shooting 13-of-19 to reach double figures for the 19th straight game. In 14 of those, he's also grabbed at least 10 rebounds, an incredible stretch that led to him being selected second-team All-America.
Notes: Wisconsin reserve C Greg Stiemsma scored two points in the first half, his first points since finishing with a career-high four against Michigan on Feb. 16. He was in for three minutes after playing less than one combined in the previous five. ... Tar Heels F Jawad Williams had two layups in less than a minute in the second half, both off passes from May, and finished with six points after totaling only three in the previous two games.
From The Chicago Sun-Times:
No compelling reason to kill Terri Schiavo
By Mark Steyn
A couple of decades back, north of the border, it was discovered that some overzealous types in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been surreptitiously burning down the barns of Quebec separatists. The prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, shrugged off the controversy and blithely remarked that, if people were so upset by the Mounties illegally burning down barns, perhaps he'd make the burning of barns by Mounties legal. As the columnist George Jonas commented:
''It seemed not to occur to him that it isn't wrong to burn down barns because it's illegal, but it's illegal to burn down barns because it's wrong. Like other statist politicians, Mr. Trudeau . . . either didn't see, or resented, that right and wrong are only reflected by the laws, not determined by them.''
That's how I feel about the Terri Schiavo case. I'm neither a Floridian nor a lawyer, and, for all I know, it may be legal under Florida law for the state to order her to be starved to death. But it is still wrong.
This is not a criminal, not a murderer, not a person whose life should be in the gift of the state. So I find it repulsive, and indeed decadent, to have her continued existence framed in terms of ''plaintiffs'' and ''petitions'' and ''en banc review'' and ''de novo'' and all the other legalese. Mrs. Schiavo has been in her present condition for 15 years. Whoever she once was, this is who she is now -- and, after a decade and a half, there is no compelling reason to kill her. Any legal system with a decent respect for the status quo -- something too many American judges are increasingly disdainful of -- would recognize that her present life, in all its limitations, is now a well-established fact, and it is the most grotesque judicial overreaching for any court at this late stage to decide enough is enough. It would be one thing had a doctor decided to reach for the morphine and ''put her out of her misery'' after a week in her diminished state; after 15 years, for the courts to treat her like a Death Row killer who's exhausted her appeals is simply vile.
There seems to be a genuine dispute about her condition -- between those on her husband's side, who say she has ''no consciousness,'' and those on her parents' side, who say she is capable of basic, childlike reactions. If the latter are correct, ending her life is an act of murder. If the former are correct, what difference does it make? If she feels nothing -- if there's no there there -- she has no misery to be put out of. That being so, why not err in favor of the non-irreversible option?
The here's-your-shroud-and-what's-your-hurry crowd say, ah, yes, but you uptight conservatives are always boring on about the sanctity of marriage, and this is what her husband wants, and he's legally the next of kin.
Michael Schiavo is living in a common-law relationship with another woman, by whom he has fathered children. I make no judgment on that. Who of us can say how we would react in his circumstances? Maybe I'd pull my hat down over my face and slink off to the cathouse on the other side of town once a week. Maybe I'd embark on a discreet companionship with a lonely widow. But if I take on a new wife (in all but name) and make a new family, I would think it not unreasonable to forfeit any right of life or death over my previous wife.
Michael Schiavo took a vow to be faithful in sickness and in health, forsaking all others till death do them part. He's forsaken his wife and been unfaithful to her: She is, de facto, his ex-wife, yet, de jure, he appears to have the right to order her execution. This is preposterous. Suppose his current common-law partner were to fall victim to a disabling accident. Would he also be able to have her terminated? Can he exercise his spousal rights polygamously? The legal deference to Mr. Schiavo's position, to his rights overriding her parents', is at odds with reality.
As for the worthlessness of Terri Schiavo's existence, some years back I was discussing the death of a distinguished songwriter with one of his old colleagues. My then girlfriend, in her mid-20s, was getting twitchy to head for dinner and said airily, ''Oh, well, he had a good life. He was 87.'' ''That's easy for you to say,'' said his old pal. ''I'm 86.'' To say nobody would want to live in an iron lung or a wheelchair or a neck brace or with third-degree burns over 80 percent of your body is likewise easy for you to say.
We all have friends who are passionate about some activity -- They say, ''I live to ski,'' or dance, or play the cello. Then something happens and they can't. The ones I've known fall into two broad camps: There are those who give up and consider what's left of their lives a waste of time; and there are those who say they've learned to appreciate simple pleasures, like the morning sun through the spring blossom dappling their room each morning. Most of us roll our eyes and think, ''What a loser, mooning on about the blossom. He used to be a Hollywood vice president, for Pete's sake.''
But that's easy for us to say. We can't know which camp we'd fall into until it happens to us. And it behooves us to maintain a certain modesty about presuming to speak for others -- even those we know well. Example: ''Driving down there, I remember distinctly thinking that Chris would rather not live than be in this condition.'' That's Barbara Johnson recalling the 1995 accident of her son Christopher Reeve. Her instinct was to pull the plug; his was to live.
As to arguments about ''Congressional overreaching'' and ''states' rights,'' which is more likely? That Congress will use this precedent to pass bills keeping you -- yes, you, Joe Schmoe of 37 Elm Street -- alive till your 118th birthday. Or that the various third parties who intrude between patient and doctor in the American system -- next of kin, HMOs, insurers -- will see the Schiavo case as an important benchmark in what's already a drift toward a culture of convenience euthanasia. Here's a thought: Where do you go to get a living-will kit saying that in the event of a hideous accident I don't want to be put to death by a Florida judge or the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals? And, if you had such a living will, would any U.S. court recognize it?
No compelling reason to kill Terri Schiavo
By Mark Steyn
A couple of decades back, north of the border, it was discovered that some overzealous types in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been surreptitiously burning down the barns of Quebec separatists. The prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, shrugged off the controversy and blithely remarked that, if people were so upset by the Mounties illegally burning down barns, perhaps he'd make the burning of barns by Mounties legal. As the columnist George Jonas commented:
''It seemed not to occur to him that it isn't wrong to burn down barns because it's illegal, but it's illegal to burn down barns because it's wrong. Like other statist politicians, Mr. Trudeau . . . either didn't see, or resented, that right and wrong are only reflected by the laws, not determined by them.''
That's how I feel about the Terri Schiavo case. I'm neither a Floridian nor a lawyer, and, for all I know, it may be legal under Florida law for the state to order her to be starved to death. But it is still wrong.
This is not a criminal, not a murderer, not a person whose life should be in the gift of the state. So I find it repulsive, and indeed decadent, to have her continued existence framed in terms of ''plaintiffs'' and ''petitions'' and ''en banc review'' and ''de novo'' and all the other legalese. Mrs. Schiavo has been in her present condition for 15 years. Whoever she once was, this is who she is now -- and, after a decade and a half, there is no compelling reason to kill her. Any legal system with a decent respect for the status quo -- something too many American judges are increasingly disdainful of -- would recognize that her present life, in all its limitations, is now a well-established fact, and it is the most grotesque judicial overreaching for any court at this late stage to decide enough is enough. It would be one thing had a doctor decided to reach for the morphine and ''put her out of her misery'' after a week in her diminished state; after 15 years, for the courts to treat her like a Death Row killer who's exhausted her appeals is simply vile.
There seems to be a genuine dispute about her condition -- between those on her husband's side, who say she has ''no consciousness,'' and those on her parents' side, who say she is capable of basic, childlike reactions. If the latter are correct, ending her life is an act of murder. If the former are correct, what difference does it make? If she feels nothing -- if there's no there there -- she has no misery to be put out of. That being so, why not err in favor of the non-irreversible option?
The here's-your-shroud-and-what's-your-hurry crowd say, ah, yes, but you uptight conservatives are always boring on about the sanctity of marriage, and this is what her husband wants, and he's legally the next of kin.
Michael Schiavo is living in a common-law relationship with another woman, by whom he has fathered children. I make no judgment on that. Who of us can say how we would react in his circumstances? Maybe I'd pull my hat down over my face and slink off to the cathouse on the other side of town once a week. Maybe I'd embark on a discreet companionship with a lonely widow. But if I take on a new wife (in all but name) and make a new family, I would think it not unreasonable to forfeit any right of life or death over my previous wife.
Michael Schiavo took a vow to be faithful in sickness and in health, forsaking all others till death do them part. He's forsaken his wife and been unfaithful to her: She is, de facto, his ex-wife, yet, de jure, he appears to have the right to order her execution. This is preposterous. Suppose his current common-law partner were to fall victim to a disabling accident. Would he also be able to have her terminated? Can he exercise his spousal rights polygamously? The legal deference to Mr. Schiavo's position, to his rights overriding her parents', is at odds with reality.
As for the worthlessness of Terri Schiavo's existence, some years back I was discussing the death of a distinguished songwriter with one of his old colleagues. My then girlfriend, in her mid-20s, was getting twitchy to head for dinner and said airily, ''Oh, well, he had a good life. He was 87.'' ''That's easy for you to say,'' said his old pal. ''I'm 86.'' To say nobody would want to live in an iron lung or a wheelchair or a neck brace or with third-degree burns over 80 percent of your body is likewise easy for you to say.
We all have friends who are passionate about some activity -- They say, ''I live to ski,'' or dance, or play the cello. Then something happens and they can't. The ones I've known fall into two broad camps: There are those who give up and consider what's left of their lives a waste of time; and there are those who say they've learned to appreciate simple pleasures, like the morning sun through the spring blossom dappling their room each morning. Most of us roll our eyes and think, ''What a loser, mooning on about the blossom. He used to be a Hollywood vice president, for Pete's sake.''
But that's easy for us to say. We can't know which camp we'd fall into until it happens to us. And it behooves us to maintain a certain modesty about presuming to speak for others -- even those we know well. Example: ''Driving down there, I remember distinctly thinking that Chris would rather not live than be in this condition.'' That's Barbara Johnson recalling the 1995 accident of her son Christopher Reeve. Her instinct was to pull the plug; his was to live.
As to arguments about ''Congressional overreaching'' and ''states' rights,'' which is more likely? That Congress will use this precedent to pass bills keeping you -- yes, you, Joe Schmoe of 37 Elm Street -- alive till your 118th birthday. Or that the various third parties who intrude between patient and doctor in the American system -- next of kin, HMOs, insurers -- will see the Schiavo case as an important benchmark in what's already a drift toward a culture of convenience euthanasia. Here's a thought: Where do you go to get a living-will kit saying that in the event of a hideous accident I don't want to be put to death by a Florida judge or the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals? And, if you had such a living will, would any U.S. court recognize it?
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