Do not retreat. Do not withdraw. Speak up. And always, always, always stand up to a bully.***

That’s the lesson learned by Shaul Bakhash, who teaches Middle Eastern history at George Mason University and whose wife, the 67-year-old Persian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari, was taken hostage by Iranian thugs and incarcerated at Evin prison in Iran [e.a.]:

Should you wake up one day to find your wife or child or parent in the hands of the secret police in a country that routinely violates the rule of law, you will likely choose quiet probing over publicity. You have no recourse to law or courts. You fear publicity may make things worse. You believe, almost always wrongly, that if you work quietly, use the contacts you have and wait reasonably, the nightmare will be over.

Read the whole thing, spare a thought for Esfandiari, and support political freedom and human rights for oppressed people everywhere. Pressure works.
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*** She’s no totalitarian, of course, but Rosie O’Donnell sure is one hell of a big-mouthed bully. And a righteous Rachel Sklar really let her have it today on ETP. Nice.

I rag on Andrew Sullivan a lot—his punitive moralistic streak drives me crazy—but I’ve been reading him for a long time and, credit where credit is due: he’s a stylish and informative blogger. He always brings in great stuff from far and wide.

Like, for instance, this welcome news from The Futurist:

In partnership with Carnegie Hall and the Weill Music Institute, Juilliard has launched a new fellowship program called “The Academy,” intended to help talented graduates balance the cultivation of their craft with teaching and community outreach.

“The so-called reclusive artist of fifty or sixty years ago, the Horowitzes who showed up, played their concert and then left, although extraordinary artists, are gone. The world has changed a great deal, especially in America,” says Joseph W. Polisi, president of the Juilliard School. We need musicians, actors and dancers who can be good and effective representatives for their art or community and take advantage of various funding sources. That’s what the goal of this is, to provide an environment for the fellows of The Academy to really hear what their colleagues have to say, to provide the tools for them to be articulate spokespersons for the arts in schools and with school boards, etc. and to really give them a sense of their own entrepreneurial abilities.”

It’s a good thing they’re “down with capitalism,” as Sullivan says, since

[y]oung artists fresh from graduate school probably won’t have the support systems many of their predecessors enjoyed. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand in the arts is expected to grow as fast as for all other occupations through 2014, but the competition for both salaried and freelance jobs will intensify as talented aspiring artists with master of fine arts degrees will vastly outnumber lucrative openings for painters, dancers, and musicians.

I suspect this will be a continuing series. Today we note how things have changed in the movie business:***

“I slept on the beach when I first came here [to Cannes] in 1971. You can’t do that anymore.”

————

*** from a Reuters article, headlined “Stress Runs High Behind the Scenes at Cannes”

Our courageous leaders at work:

Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.