NEW YORK, September 6, 2007--Abe Foxman’s limo circled the 92nd Street Y warily a couple of times to give him a chance to survey the scene across the street. A group of 40 to 50 young Armenians and Jews were protesting the Anti-Defamation League’s continued lobbying to have HR/SR 106 (a symbolic Congressional resolution that recognizes the Armenian Genocide) die without a floor vote, at the behest of Turkey.

Finally, Foxman ducked into the building to participate in a panel discussion on "anti-Semitism in the modern world and its implications." Ironically, the discussion was moderated by Fordham Law Professor Thane Rosenbaum, author of "The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right." The event had been sold out for days, so The Stiletto does not know whether Rosenbaum asked Foxman why he failed to do the right thing in recognizing the Armenian Genocide until several communities in MA refused to accept the ADL’s tolerance promotion program, "No Place For Hate" in their schools.

Some protestors were holding handmade signs demanding that the ADL fire Foxman over his Armenian Genocide denial, others were holding signs demanding that Foxman support HR/SR 106. Among the slogans they chanted non-stop for more than an hour:

"Fox’s bargain is a shame! No more denial in our name."

"Gars, Auschwitz, Rwanda Sudan.
Many a murder, when will it end?"

"What did Hitler say?
Who remembers the Armenians?
We do. We do. We do."

"ADL must support Resolution 106"

And the ever-popular:

"What do we want? Justice.
When do we want it? Now."

The Stiletto caught up with one woman who gave her age as "60ish," just as she was about to enter the Y to hear Foxman. She was interested in what Foxman had to say about "contemporary anti-Semitism." Asked what she thought about the crowd protesting the ADL’s Armenian Genocide denial, she mused, "Does ‘never again’ mean for everybody or just for Jews?" She answered her own question: "It is important for Jews to recognize the Genocide. We are conscious of other people’s oppression, not just our own."

As it was nearly 8:15 pm and the rest of the ticket-holders were scurrying inside so they could take their seats before the evening’s program got under way, The Stiletto crossed the street to meet some of the protesters and find out why they opposed Foxman’s positions on the Armenian Genocide and on HR/SR 106.

"I am Jewish," said documentary filmmaker Lauren Kesner, 30, "but I have very strong Armenian connections because I lived in Armenia for several years working on a film" about the 1994 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno Karabakh region. That film, "A Story of People In War & Peace," had its U.S. premiere (video link) at the Tribeca Film Festival a few weeks ago.

Kesner believes the ADL’s position on the Armenian Genocide is realpolitik, plain and simple: "Turkey is Israel’s most important ally in the Middle East. Because the Jewish community supports Israel, they don’t want to get on Turkey’s bad side." Recognizing that the Armenian Genocide is "a sensitive issue" for supporters of Israel, she nevertheless insists that, "Jews – of all people – need to stand up to the injustice of genocide, because of how the Holocaust traumatized the Jewish community worldwide."

The Armenians she lived amongst are still haunted by the Genocide, and "it rubs salt in the wounds to deny it."

The anti-Foxman protest is the first of many that will bring Armenians and Jews together to fight for justice, said Doug Geogerian, 38, who sits on the board of the Eastern Region of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), a grassroots lobby that promotes Armenian-American issues. He marvels at how Foxman "is using the ADL and its reputation of having fought the KKK and neo-nazis, to collaborate with the Turkish government and deny the Armenian Genocide."

Geogerian added, "Supporting Turkey benefits Israel. But there is also a cost - a cost in public integrity. Many Jews are starting to feel that the cost is too great."

Why Middle Class Americans Can’t Afford Health Insurance

A new Census Bureau report shows that even though median household income rose to $48,200 in 2006 - a slight increase from the year before - the number of people without health insurance also increased to 47 million, or 15.8 percent of the population.

The uptick in the uninsured is due to workers losing employer-provided or privately purchased health insurance.

An article in The Wall Street Journal advises scrutinizing your medical records as closely as your credit report, as mistakes can affect your insurability or your premium:

Even if your medical records are complete – and completely accurate – there is stuff in there that an insurance underwriter will zero in on to assign you to a higher risk pool – which could mean that your monthly premium could be higher than your mortgage or rent – even if you are in good health. Consider this scenario:

A 35-year old divorced woman is going over the results of her lab tests with her doctor. The patient has two tween-age children, and took her widowed mother into her home two years earlier after a stroke left her unable to live on her own – though still able to walk, dress and bathe herself

The patient is a non-smoker and within 10 pounds of a weight her doctor considers optimal. However, her blood pressure is borderline and her cholesterol is a bit high. The doctor tells her that both conditions can be managed without medication, if she exercises at a moderate level of intensity for 30 to 45 minutes a day.

She looks at the doctor incredulously, and launches into a plaintive protest:

If you think this is a private exchange between this patient and her doctor you’re wrong. The doctor has been taking notes the entire time, and the details of this conversation are immortalized in the patient’s medical records.

Should this woman lose her health benefits, because her company can no longer afford to insure its employees or the company goes belly up and she’s out of work, underwriters at all the insurance companies from which she will try to purchase individual coverage will look at the doctor’s notes and conclude she is a high risk.

Despite being a normal weight non-smoker she will be deemed a heart attack waiting to happen, because of her cholesterol and blood pressure readings. Her reference to depression will also be flagged as a potential suicide. Every health insurance company she contacts will offer her coverage – as they are required to under HIPPA – but they will want to charge more than $1,000 a month just for her, never mind the kids. (The American Sleep Apnea Association Web site has a great explanation of why people get "rated" and how underwriters determine how much to charge you for health care coverage.)

The moral of the story: Don’t give your doctor any extraneous information about your life. Anything you say can and will be used against you by an insurance underwriter when you try to get healthcare coverage.
 

Huckabee Is Now A First-Tier Candidate

Though Fred Thompson finally ended his dance of the seven veils and revealed his candidacy to Jay Leno in a taped appearance on NBC's "Tonight Show," it’s Mike Huckabee – who has always made the most of his limited time in the spotlight as a second-tier candidate – who’s looking sexy after Wednesday’s "The First of the Fall Republican Debate" in Durham, NH.

The highlight of the evening was the electrifying and impassioned give-and-take – imagine, an actual debate broke out at the "you have one minute for answers, 30 second for rebuttals" debate! - between Huckabee and Ron Paul on whether and when to pull out of Iraq.

Chris Wallace set the stage by asking the anti-war Paul whether the US should try "to minimize the bloodbath that would certainly occur if we pull out," protect "the thousands of Iraqis who have staked their lives in backing the U.S" and if troops should be left in the region "to take out any al Qaeda camps that are developed after we leave?" Paul explained his positions more lucidly than ever before:

After Sam Brownback weighed in on all this, Huckabee took it right to Paul. Speaking in measured tones, Huckabee came off as strong and principled, but the more excitable Paul became, the higher-pitched and whinier his voice got so even if he said something that made sense, he sounded unreasonable:

Wallace and his colleague, Wendell Goler, threw tough questions at the candidates, but it seemed to The Stiletto that Giuliani – who got asked questions that would have made a lesser man squirm (as Romney did when a voter whose son served two tours in Iraq slammed him for comparing being in harm’s way to Romney’s five sons riding the Mitt Mobile to further their father’s political ambitions) - was able to explain himself clearly and forthrightly, without hemming and hawing or bobbing and weaving:

Giuliani: It’s a matter of principle. I think if you’re president of the United States, you take one pledge: to uphold the Constitution of the United States. There would be literally thousands of issues on which you would take a pledge if you let groups do that to you. So I’ve always taken the view that you take one pledge, it’s to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Carl Cameron, who was stationed at a local eatery to field questions from voters, gave University of New Hampshire poly-sci major James Tautkus the mike to ask an incomprehensibly phrased question that turned out to be about Giuliani’s messy private life.

Finally, Giuliani gave arguably the smartest answer of the bunch to the loaded hypothetical with which moderator Brit Hume likes to end Fox-sponsored debates. In this scenario, U.N. weapons inspectors say that Iran is on the verge of – or even may already be – producing nukes. U.S. inspectors have been kicked out of the country, the number of cross-border incidents between Iran and Iraq have increased, and the threats against Israel have escalated:

Perhaps The Stiletto was watching a different debate on Wednesday night than the sad-sack group of New Hampshire voters gathered together by pollster Frank Luntz, who thought the debate was disappointing, that John McCain was the clear winner and that Rudy kept harping on his experience as NYC’s mayor too much.

Why shouldn’t Rudy talk about how he turned around NYC – and how he kept his head on 9/11 while all about him were losing theirs? The Stiletto lived in NYC during the Dinkins years, and has some understanding of what it might be like to live in Beirut. What Rudy accomplished was nothing less than a miracle – and he even lowered her taxes to boot!