America Archives
May 29, 2007
"Do you know of a better flag to wave?"
[John] Wayne's patriotism was of the simple, refreshing kind. "Sure I wave the American flag," Mr. Wayne told a reporter during the Vietnam War. "Do you know of a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I am not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be."
"The John Wayne Century," by John Fund, OpinionJournal's Political Diary, May 29, 2007
John Wayne - from Wikipedia
John Wayne filmography - from IMDb
The UnOfficial John Wayne website
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May 25, 2007
Ronald Reagan on Immigration
The fact that Reagan supported something does not by itself prove that it is right, or even that it is the right position for conservatives. Reagan certainly made his share of mistakes, such as the extremely grave error of trading arms for hostages with Iran. But as Cannon notes, Reagan's positive attitude towards immigration was not just an isolated issue position, but was integrally linked to his generally optimistic and open vision of America. I would add that it also drew on his understanding that America is not a zero-sum game between immigrants and natives - just as he also recognized that it is not a zero-sum game between the rich and the poor. Immigration could promote prosperity and advancement for both groups in much the same way that free trade benefits both Americans and foreigners.
"Ronald Reagan on Immigration," by Ilya Sominm, The Volokh Conspiracy, May 25, 2007
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May 13, 2007
"One of the deepest human passions is the urge to self-righteous pontification"
In fact, the Duke lacrosse case showed a number of things. Yes, there was the issue of the disgraced District Attorney Michael Nifong running amok, suppressing evidence and cynically bartering the lives of three white lacrosse players in his populist bid to win reelection in racially divided Durham. Nifong was certainly part of that “tragic rush to accuse.” As was Syracuse University, which decided not to accept as transfers any students from the Duke lacrosse team--not just the three accused chaps, mind you, but anyone contaminated by having played lacrosse for Duke.
But there are at least two other aspects of the case that deserve comment. One is the role of the media, which with few exceptions descended on the story like Lord Byron’s fabled Assyrian and his cohorts pursuing the destruction of Sennacherib. Oh, how The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and countless other bastions of liberal self-satisfaction loved it! Race. Class. Sex. Victimhood. It was the perfect morality tale. Those white jocks at “the Harvard of the South” just had to be guilty. And what a good time we were all going to have lacerating the malefactors while at the same time preening ourselves on our own superior virtue!
The editorials, the op-eds, the comments, the analyses poured forth non-stop, demonstrating that one of the deepest human passions is the urge to self-righteous pontification. The novelist Allan Gurganis epitomized the tone in an op-ed last April: “The children of privilege,” he thundered, “feel vividly alive only while victimizing, even torturing.” You don’t say? Even sports writers got into the act. Selena Roberts located Duke University “at the intersection of entitlement and enablement, … virtuous on the outside, debauched on the inside.” In August, as Nifong’s case was betraying worrisome fissures, the Times published a 7,000-word article arguing--“praying” might be a more apposite term—that, whatever weaknesses there might be in the prosecution’s case, “there is also a body of evidence to support [taking] the matter to a jury.” As the Times columnist David Brooks ruefully noted after the tide had turned, the campaign against the athletes had the lineaments of a “witch hunt.”
. . .
What a travesty.
"Regardless of the ‘truth’," by The New Criterion, May 2007
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May 07, 2007
Notes from a friend
Concerning Imus...
A fine witty quote-
Between Imus and the death of the great Hawaiian singer, it was a bad week for the word "ho". Dennis Miller
A tacky thought-
The first known inappropriate use of the term "ho" was surprising enough, by Walt Disney...dwarf greetings to a young lady..."hi-ho", "hi-ho".
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April 29, 2007
Guns and preschool
The Syracuse Family Development program went even further. Economically deprived families with poorly educated parents were given a five year program that began with prenatal care and continued through preschool. [FN220] The families were visited weekly by highly skilled child development trainers to help improve parenting techniques and to address other problems. The children were also placed in high-quality preschool programs. A follow-up fifteen years later found that only six percent of children from those families ended up with a probation record, compared to twenty-two percent from a control group, and the offenses perpetrated by the latter group were much more serious than the offenses of the former.
By age twenty-five, the graduates of the Syracuse program had only .01 felony convictions per capita, compared to .18 for the controls. The Syracuse program was expensive; the cost in 1997 dollars was $18,037. But in the long run, the government criminal justice costs avoided amounted to $13,442; and there were $16,717 in crime victim costs avoided. [FN222] Thus, even if we do not count the improved quality of life for the children, as well as their greater economic productivity, the Syracuse program, despite its great expense, created net savings through reducing crime.
John Donohue and Peter Siegelman have evaluated the comparative benefits of increased spending on incarceration versus increased spending on early childhood programs. They point out that marginal dollars spent on prisons are less cost-effective than average prison spending: because the worst criminals are already in prison, marginal increases in prison spending allow incarceration only of less dangerous or less active criminals. Donohue and Siegelman show that if an early-childhood program can be at least half as effective as the Perry program, then reducing prison construction spending in order to spend more on early childhood education may be more cost effective. Donohue and Siegelman caution that simply throwing money at early childhood programs is no solution; the failed Head Start program (which yields no observable long-term benefits for its participants) was inspired by the Perry Preschool success. Moreover, early childhood dollars should be concentrated on the children most at risk (particularly inner-city males without two parents), but the authors warn that political needs might force too much money to be spent on groups with much lower risks of future violent delinquency (e.g., middle-class females from two-parent homes).
"Guns, Gangs and Preschools: Moving Beyond Conventional Solutions to Confront Juvenile Violence," by David Kopel, Summer 2000 (footnotes omitted)
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April 27, 2007
Guns around the world
Gun confiscation, however, is correlated with homicide--in that gun confiscation is almost always a condition precedent for genocide and other murderous atrocities by government. This was historically true in Turkish Armenia, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Guatemala, Cambodia, and Idi Amin's Uganda. It is still true in Ethiopia, East Timor, Srebrenica, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.
The experience of the Holocaust also shows that to the extent that victims do obtain firearms, they have a much greater chance of survival, even under the worst conditions.
In October 2005, the people of Brazil voted on a U.N.-backed gun confiscation plan, and 64% said "Não."
The confiscation campaign leader later warned his international allies, "First lesson is, don't trust direct democracy."
As Foreign Policy magazine observed in February 2006, the right to arms today "strikes a chord with people of very different backgrounds, experiences, and cultures, even when that culture has historically been anti-gun." Aggressively hostile to the right of self-defense against solitary criminals and criminal governments, today's international political and media elites are out of step not only with America, but with more and more people around the world.
"Are guns all-American? Should we be concerned that so much of the rest of the developed world believes U.S. gun laws are crazy?" All this week, David Kopel and Christopher Lockwood debate gun control. Today, the Independence Institute's Kopel and The Economist's Lockwood address the international view on guns. Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2007
I've heard people say "only in America" in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings. Clearly, though, it's not only in America. Terrible incidents like these have occurred and are occurring in countries across the world, including countries that severely restrict or ban the private ownership of firearms, and countries with a reputation of peace and harmony.
"'Only in America'? Gunning Down a Claim," by Steve Stanek, TCS Daily, April 20, 2007
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April 26, 2007
History is fundamental
By now, we’re used to people like Iranian President Ahmadinejad denying that the Holocaust ever happened, even while he and his regime promise not only the destruction of Israel but the elimination of Jews internationally.
It’s bad enough hearing from a distance about the bizarre anti-Semitic theories taught by heads of state as well as schools and religious leaders. Now, according to a study funded by the British government, we find out that some schools in Great Britain have stopped teaching history that is offensive to Muslim students. The topics that have been erased from the curriculum, the study found, include both the Nazi genocide and the Crusades.
"Back to Backbone: History is fundamental," by Fred Thompson, NRO, April 25, 2007
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April 20, 2007
Another heart warming use of your tax dollars...
They laughed when UNESCO announced a whole new category of cultural anxiety, the grave danger faced by humanity's "intangible cultural heritage." Ancient dances of obscure tribes, almost forgotten rituals and nearly extinct musical instruments must be saved (UNESCO said) by government intervention, naturally under UNESCO guidance.
This sounded hopelessly vague to everyone not employed in the world of professional culture-protection. But nobody at UNESCO laughed. Nobody there ever laughs. Policy comes out of the feverishly ambitious minds of a few dozen solemn owls in Paris who spend their time looking for ways the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization can extend its bureaucratic empire of taste.
Decades ago, Maclean's magazine ran a skeptical article about UNESCO, suggesting it might be no more than a trivial, wasteful boondoggle, designed to provide employment for an expanding army of well-educated civil servants. How cruel of Maclean's, I thought at the time. And how wrong and ignorant I was. Since then, extensive reading on this subject has reversed my opinion. UNESCO probably does no major harm, except addle the brains of those who take it seriously. But it's a typical UN agency in the sense that it lives in a costly world of endless meetings at which pompous committees urge, advocate, classify, deplore -- and accomplish not much.
When the heavy thinkers in UNESCO arrived at the idea of "intangible cultural heritage" (ICH) and sold it to their member nations a few years ago, they must have known they had a big winner, maybe the most lucrative gimmick in the history of cultural politics.
UNESCO expands according to how much money it can winkle out of the various nations of the world when taxpayers are looking the other way. From that standpoint, ICH shows more promise than anything else in UNESCO history. It has a unique quality. It expands infinitely. No country on Earth will ever run out of dying traditions. Local departments of culture were quick to see the job opportunities and support the UNESCO idea.
"Snake charmers of the world, unite!: The follies of a UNESCO-shaped global culture," by Robert Fulford, National Post (Canada), April 10, 2007
UNESCO - Wikipedia
Doesn't that just warm the cockles of your heart?
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April 17, 2007
Pink People
The blogosphere is reverberating with the drums echoing from Bill Whittle’s fine essay about the divisions of people into tribes. What follows is not exactly a summary; it’s closer to a synthesis of his ideas written for those of us with the attention span of your average Cub Scout. That being said (“that” meaning you should go read the real thing here), let’s look at Mr. Whittle’s fine images, beginning with the Pink People.
Whittle’s PP’s are typified by Hollywood types, though Pink is not confined just to Hollywood -- it’s simply that there are more Pink People per square inch in Hollywood and its environs than there are anywhere else, except perhaps in Washington, D.C., a place for which Pink People also have an affinity…
When you Think Pink, consider Sean Penn in his rescue boat -- a four person “rescue” boat which Mr. Penn fills with four people, one of whom is his personal photographer. A boat in which the plug had not been fastened so that there are many hilarious ( or hideous, depending on your sensibilities) pictures of Mr. Penn bailing the boat with a red plastic cup. Mr. Penn, Pink Person extraordinaire, was not out to rescue anyone. This was merely his trip to Iran translated to American. He was in New Orleans to appear to be rescuing someone. No doubt he left money there also, to show he was acting in good faith (since he does not act particularly well, acting in good faith may be all he has left in his small bag of tricks). Mr. Penn may even have left some of his good-faith money with the mayor, who is definitely a Pink Person -- a Pink Person appearing as a mayor. This pink-to-pink transfer allows all the Pinks to feel good, and to a Pink, feeling good is the summum bonum.
Pink people wear rose-colored glasses. They prepare for the future by grabbing as much material wealth as possible and then looking down on others, whose actions in life may originate from different motivations. Pink people do well until they are called upon to act decisively for others in situations where they themselves may be at risk. This situation does not cause a change in color. They simply scream in place until a grey person eats them or rescues them.
The grey people? Here is where I synthesize Mr. Whittle’s comments. He describes this grey as the color of concrete. Where Pink People are soft, Grey People are hard, like the graphite in mechanical pencils. They are that way on purpose because they act purposefully, wherever they are.
"Sheepdogs Driving the Bus," Gates of Vienna, September 6, 2005
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April 16, 2007
The guy looked like a pervert
If black Americans in 2007 are this delicate and overreact to the slightest insults with this much unrighteous indignation, it’s pretty safe to say black people are not made the way they used to be, of stronger stuff, able to withstand truly demeaning and criminal treatment at the hands of true oppressors. It’s sad to know that the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of people who faced actual oppression are so much weaker, much less discerning, and much more undignified.
"Don Imus, Booker T., and XM Radio," by La Shawn Barber, La Shawn Barber's Corner, April 11, 2007
What Imus said is lowdown indeed, but so is the way blacks refer to each other. And life goes on.
Street theater is not strength. It saps energy better put to other uses. The focus we'll be dedicating to the next gaffe sometime in (this time I'll give myself a little more wiggle room) May will mean that much less commitment to addressing black people's real problems.
"A dangerous detour: Cycles of outrage and apology distract blacks from confronting many big, chronic problems," by John McWhorter, The New York Daily News, April 10, 2007
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
"Imus isn’t the real bad guy: Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture," by Jason Whitlock, The Kansas City Star, April 11, 2007
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April 03, 2007
I love this country.
I got my haircut on Saturday at the same small mall chop-shop, but this time I didn’t get the same pouty little witch I’ve had the last two times. I got one of those talkative types who pauses while cutting to gesture extensively. We talked about kids -- she has a son turning nine, and his birthday’s next week, and she’s having 96 people over. Ninety six? Kids? No, no -- relatives. All the extended family. Lots of people on her side and lots of people on her husband’s, and lots of kids in both families. Hence the birthdays are big events, and the kids are spoiled beyond reason. (“Seven hundred dollars in cash last year!” she said.) I mention this because she was the daughter of immigrants; her parents came from Laos, her husband’s parents from Cambodia. Her mother had to swim across the river while pregnant to get to a refugee camp to escape to America. And now they’re here; they number 96 and they’re doing well, to say the least. I love this country.
James Lileks, The Bleat, April 3, 2007
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March 25, 2007
"Narcissism posing as humility"
"there's nothing worse than narcissism posing as humility."
"The Hostile New Age Takeover of Yoga," by Ron Rosenbaum, Slate, March 21, 2007
... unless it's "Depravity dressed up as empowerment"
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March 23, 2007
Depravity dressed up as empowerment
Depravity dressed up as empowerment is fast becoming the cultural trope of our times.
"Triumph of the Fembots: Beauty queens are out. The Pussycat Dolls are in," by Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2007
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March 21, 2007
Muggers
Most of my friends in L.A. don't understand that London really is more dangerous than the U.S., because in the U.S. the mugger never can be sure the victim doesn't have a gun, while in the U.K. they know the victim does not. It goes against gun control received wisdom, I know, and so I guess shouldn't be true, but apparently is.
"Not falling down," Cathy Seipp, March 2, 2007
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March 19, 2007
Freedom and security
Point is, the Spartans were asked to kneel, and chose not to. Every culture has a myth like this. If they don’t, they will be vassals to culture that do.
"Coffe shop, post-protest," by James Lileks, The Bleat, Marrch 19, 2007
If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.Dwight Eisenhower
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March 17, 2007
Barack Obama = Charles de Gaulle?
When Charles de Gaulle paid his first visit to embattled French Algeria after taking power in 1958, he stepped up to the microphone in front of a vast throng of Europeans and Arabs torn by murderous hostilities, stared out at them, and simply announced, “I have understood you.” The crowd exulted. Christians and Muslims alike broke into grateful tears. De Gaulle understands us! What more do we need?
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has yet to attain that level of oracular ambiguity, but his bestseller The Audacity of Hope shows this wordsmith’s facility at eloquently restating the views of both his liberal supporters and his conservative opponents, leaving implicit the suggestion that all we require to resolve these wearying Washington disputes is to find a man who understands us--a reasonable man, a man very much like, say, Obama--and turn power over to him. The politician has elicited such fervor among many white voters that Slate.com’s Timothy Noah runs a regular feature entitled “The Obama Messiah Watch” quoting “gratuitously adoring” articles. (Blacks have tended to be relatively more level-headed about him.)
. . .
Beneath this bland Good Obama lies a more interesting character, one that I like far better--the Bad Obama, a close student of other people’s weaknesses, a literary artist of considerable power in plumbing his deep reservoirs of self-pity and resentment, an unfunny Evelyn Waugh consumed by indignation toward his own mother’s people. He has been hiding out on the bestseller lists for the last two years in his enormously revealing, but little understood, 1995 “autobiography”--a more accurate term might be “autobiographical novel”--Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
When Obama briefly surfaced in the media in 1990 as the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review, Random House handed him a book contract. Originally, he intended to write a disquisition on race relations, but the puerility of his theorizing discouraged him. He turned instead to writing about what he finds truly fascinating: his relatives and himself.
Obama’s gift for restructuring the past into emotionally and aesthetically satisfying patterns made for an uneasy hybrid of fact and fiction, with composite characters, clearly made-up dialogue, and even preposterous dream sequences. Recently, the Los Angeles Times revealed that the tale of his one triumph during his four years as a young ethnic activist in Chicago--getting asbestos removed from a public housing project--excluded all mention of the veteran local agitator, Hazel Johnson, who might deserve more of the credit.
. . .
Obama has led a fairly pleasant existence, with most of its suffering and conflict taking place within his own head as he tries to turn himself into an authentic angry black man.
. . .
In reality, Obama provides a disturbing test of the best-case scenario of whether America can indeed move beyond race. He inherited his father’s penetrating intelligence; was raised mostly by his loving liberal white grandparents in multiracial, laid-back Hawaii, where America’s normal race rules never applied; and received a superb private school education. And yet, at least through age 33 when he wrote Dreams from My Father, he found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against his mother’s race.
. . .
Instead, Obama falls under the spell of a leftist black nationalist preacher, Jeremiah A. Wright, who preaches African-American unity through antipathy toward whites. Reverend Wright remains a major influence on the presidential candidate. (The title of Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, is borrowed from one of Wright’s sermons.) Ben Wallace-Wells notes in Rolling Stone: “This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr.”
"Obama’s Identity Crisis: Although he presents himself as a healer of differences, the presidential candidate’s own racial struggle paints a conflicted portrait," by Steve Sailer, The American Conservative, March 26, 2007
Rev. Jeremiah Wright - Techonrati
"Obama Disses His Pastor," Get Rid of the DLC blog, March 7, 2007
The Obama Messiah Watch - Timothy Noah, Slate
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March 16, 2007
Self esteem and delusion
We might think that Americans are eager to celebrate talented young people who can thumb their noses at the older generation and thus exorcise the lingering resentment so many harbor from being graded and evaluated in the classroom. But what American Idol reveals instead is a veritable hunger for realistic evaluation. Time and time again, contestants in the early episodes of this year's season whine obviously off key and then insist they are highly talented -- in spite of the judges' protestations. Most of those kids have not learned how to sing, but they have mastered the self-esteem and "attitude" so valued in our culture. The persistent dynamic of these episodes is expertise putting down untalented braggadocio.
"Schooled by 'American Idol'," by Christopher Ames, The Chronicle Review, March 16, 2007
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December 27, 2006
Don't Tread On Me
USS Key West (SSN 722) raised the First Navy Jack in place of the Union Jack Wednesday at Pearl Harbor Naval Station to honor those who died during the attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
In a similar ceremony held just across the harbor, the Aegis cruiser USS Port Royal (CG 73) joined the Key West in raising the Navy Jack to remember the innocent men and women who lost their lives one year ago.
The Secretary of the Navy directed that all U.S. Navy ships raise the historic Jack beginning on Sept. 11 and continue to do so throughout the global War on Terrorism. The temporary replacement of the more widely recognized Union Jack represents a historic reminder of the nation’s and Navy’s origin.
The First Navy Jack is a flag consisting of a rattlesnake, superimposed across 13 horizontal alternating red and white stripes with the motto, 'Don’t Tread On Me.'
"First Navy Jack Flies Until End of War," Navy Newstand, September 12, 2002
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December 23, 2006
What you can do - right now - for our troops
I am frequently asked the question, "What can we as individual Americans do for our troops, particularly those serving overseas?"
I have two answers and a recommendation. The two answers are to pray for them and to say, "Thank you," when you encounter serving military personnel and veterans.
The recommendation is to "send a few dollars to Operation Call Home."
Operation Call Home is the brainchild of Ladd Pattillo, an Austin, Texas, businessmen, U.S. Army Reserve colonel and personal friend.
"Operation Call Home," by Austin Bay, TCS Daily, December 21, 2006
You can buy calling cards for our troops through a Department of Defense Military Exchange program: Military Exchange Prepaid Calling Cards. Cards are distributed through the American Red Cross, Air Force Aid Society, Fisher House, Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, USO, and the Soldier & Family Assistance Center.
Posted at 11:47 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: America , Getting Things Done , Holidays
December 14, 2006
"Why Identity Politics Distracts Us From Economic Inequalities"
[E]lite universities have come to think of African-American-studies programs on the model of state-of-the-art fitness facilities: No one goes to a college just because it has a great climbing wall, but, all other things being equal, the great climbing wall might clinch the deal. And if the climbing wall comparison seems to trivialize the commitment to diversity, insofar as that commitment involves one Ivy League university's trying to lure some students of color away from other Ivy League universities, it already seems pretty trivial. In fact, from the standpoint of social justice, the question of whether kids who might otherwise have gone to Yale decide instead to go to Princeton couldn't be more trivial.
. . .
But there's a more-important sense in which even African-American studies is a kind of blackface, a performance not only of blackness but of race itself. Asian-Americans are overrepresented in elite colleges like Princeton; African-American students are underrepresented. But no one's as underrepresented in those colleges as poor people. And no one's looking to get their numbers up to where, if you wanted to eliminate the underrepresentation, they would have to be. A Princeton that managed to lure enough black students away from the other Ivies to constitute 12 percent of its entering class (just as African-Americans constitute approximately 12 percent of the American population) would be a more diverse Princeton. A Princeton where 50 percent of the entering class consisted of students who came from households earning under $46,326 (the median income in the United States) would be an entirely different institution.
"Why Identity Politics Distracts Us From Economic Inequalities," by Walter Benn Michaels, The Chronicle Review, December 15, 2006
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December 06, 2006
"Sex is the only sacrament they have"
I preferred it when the stars had to pretend they were one of us, really. That there were certain values - flag, country, detonated corn hulls consumed with your offspring – that we all shared. What really annoyed me about the DeVito remarks was his account of sexing up the Lincoln Bedroom with his wife; leaving aside the fact that America really doesn’t want to think about this hairy-backed gargoyle pinning Rhea Perlman up against the door, it was the lickerish lip-smacking delight in despoiling something that seemed so utterly typical of an aged ur-boomer. Why don’t we do it in the road? as the Beatles put it. Well, perhaps because you’re not dogs; perhaps because a school bus is due along in a few minutes. For some people of a particular generation, sex is the only sacrament they have, but it’s anything but holy. It’s hot short and loud, like a rest-room hand-drier you turn on by hitting the button with the side of your fist. This has been going on for forty years, but they still act as if the Eisenhower Shock Troops will burst in and arrest them for talking about recreational sex. If they have a church, it has Lenny Bruce as St. Sebastian, pierced by a dozen hypodermic needles. He died for our sins. And what were our sins? That nagging sense of shame at finding a Playboy in daddy's sock drawer, I guess.
"The speech," by James Lileks, The Bleat, December 6, 2006
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October 20, 2006
Immigration
A balanced approach to immigration suits me just fine. But a fence only approach not only won’t work, it would be bad for the economy. (Now I’ve said it.) Remember, over the past twenty years of the high tide of Mexican immigration, the American economy has prospered and flourished.
I like these Mexicans. They go to Catholic Church; They work hard; They’re learning English and they will eventually create a new blue-collar middle class.
"Kudlow’s Congressional Report Card," Kudlow's Money Politic$, September 29, 2006
Anybody who says that immigranmts from Mexico and Central America are lazy or don't work hard has no idea what they're talking about ... check out any construction site in the DC metro area ... especially during the hot and muggy summer months ... also try some of the food served out of the taco trucks servicing those sites ... or one of the trucks at Gunston ...
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October 18, 2006
"We're better off seeking guidance from the first 100 names in the Hamilton Township phone book"
Yes, you can still find those things at Princeton and other great universities, here and there -- in the scholarship of Princeton Professors Sean Wilentz and Robert George, for example. But, to paraphrase William F. Buckley, I think we're better off seeking guidance from the first 100 names in the Hamilton Township phone book than from a random sample of the Princeton faculty.
"The Beautiful People vs. The Dutiful People," by Michael Barone, Commentray, January 16, 2006
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September 23, 2006
Silent No More Awareness Campaign New York City Gathering
WHEN: October 4, 2006, 12:30pm
WHERE: 6th Ave between 49th and 50th Street
WHAT: Event to break the silence of abortion and let women testify to the damage abortion has caused them
CONTACT: Colleen Barry at 347-245-9476 or Silentnomorenyc@yahoo.com
The Campaign seeks to expose and heal the secrecy surrounding the emotional and physical pain of abortion. Since officially launching the Campaign in January 2003, 180 Gatherings have occurred in 6 countries and 48 states.
This gathering is one of many happening throughout America and in Washington D.C. through 2006. Each participant is "Silent No More" by giving a 2 minute testimonial. Those choosing not to give a testimonial attend in support with the speakers.
The campaign has three main goals:
1. Educate the public that abortion is harmful emotionally, physically and spiritually.
2. Inform women who are hurting from an abortion that there is help.
3. Invite women to join us in speaking the truth about abortion?s negative consequences.
3 ways to participate:
a) If you are a post abortive person who would like to speak out about the harm abortion has brought to your life.
b) If you are a post abortive person who does not wish to speak but is willing to hold a sign saying "I Regret My Abortion"
c) As a general support person who will attend as a spectator (we need you there!)
If you are planning to attend or have questions please email Colleen Barry at Silentnomorenyc@yahoo.com or call 347-245-9476. Your feedback is appreciated.
Georgette Forney, Executive Director of NOEL (National Organization of Episcopalians for Life) and Janet Morana, Associate Director of Priests for Life are the Co-Founders of this Campaign.
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August 31, 2006
"The perpetual adolescent strain in post-WW2 culture"
Before the 50s, when there were actual problems like an interminable Depression and Nazis, adolescents were mostly unseen in the culture. You had kids, and you had grown-ups. Adolescents were young grownups, expected to adhere to the same general rules of behavior. It was an adult culture, and adolescents were the interns. The culture would tolerate some things like Bobby Soxers, but with wry eye-rolling amusement. After the war, though, the adolescent was not only the focus of the culture’s attention, he was taken seriously. He was an inarticulate oracle, a mumbling sage, a jeering jester with a switchblade. One of the dumbest lines in cinema is one of the most famous: asked what he’s rebelling against, Marlin Brando’s character in the “The Wild Ones” says “Whaddya got?”Oh, I don’t know. The Pure Food Act, antibiotics, an industrial infrastructure that makes it possible for you to ride your bikes around, paved roads, a foreseeable successful conclusion to rural electrification, sewers, the ability to walk into any small café and order a Coke and know you won’t be squitting your guts out 12 hours later into a hole in the ground alive with squishy invertebrates. Little things. No wonder they fretted over the Juvenile Delinquents – they’d known not hard times nor war, and they acted as if they’d been born into the sixth circle of Hell. If pressed, JDs would respond - with their trademark mommie-took-my-rattle petulance that they were against the whole phony world, man, because there’s nothing the adolescent finds more contemptible than hypocrisy. Somehow they find the fact that their Old Man lied about Santa Claus – lied, man, stood there and lied with a big old smile on his big old face, dig it – is a piercing insight to the machinations of adulthood. Please don't tell me they were alienated by the threat of nuclear war. So was my generation. We reacted with Disco and "Supertrain."
"My weekend?" by James Lileks, The Bleat, August 21, 2006
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August 23, 2006
Eisenhower Golfocracy = "the go-to era for the modern Dark Ages"
But back to the brave daring Anti-Disney play. Wouldn’t be interesting to see a play about actual contemporary anti-Semites whose power extends beyond the confines of an animation studio? But you’re far more likely to see a play about the sex-doll origins of Barbie, for example. Why? Because it would shock town squares to learn that the doll with the tiny waist, long legs and hella-portion hooters might have something to do with sex. It would reexamine – nay, examine for the first time – this culture’s notions of sex, a subject no one ever dares to raise.Some day someone may pen a biting satirical look at a government so nervous about sex and the irresistible lies of Mad Ave they banned Barbie, Western Pop music and American ads themselves.
If such a play’s performed, it won’t be in by expats in Scotland; it’ll run in Tehran after the Mullahs fall. Among the wise and brave in the west, the Red Scare and the Eisenhower Golfocracy will remain the go-to era for the modern Dark Ages, a time when talented, witty people couldn’t glibly support a collectivist blood-soaked totalitarian system without fear their boss might get the wrong idea. You can see why the “Mouse is Dead” premise, however historically flawed, was catnip for the playwrights. Disney = Mickey, and everyone loved Mickey Mouse. He was cheerful, brave, industrious, ingenious, faithful, fair, scrappy and true. He was everything the grownups said we should be.
God how we hate him.
"My weekend?" by James Lileks, The Bleat, August 21, 2006
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June 23, 2006
"Godless: The Church of Liberalism"
Ann Coulter's new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a rollicking read very tightly reasoned and hard to argue with. After all, the progressive mind regards it as backward and primitive to let religion determine every aspect of your life, but takes it as advanced and enlightened to have the state determine every aspect of your life. Lest you doubt the left's pieties are now a religion, try this experiment: go up to an environmental activist and say "Hey, how about that ozone hole closing up?" or "Wow! The global warming peaked in 1998 and it's been getting cooler for almost a decade. Isn't that great?" and then look at the faces. As with all millenarian doomsday cults, good news is a bummer.
...
But in 2004, the Jersey Girls publicly endorsed John Kerry's campaign for president: they inserted themselves into the political arena and chose sides. That being so, to demand that they be insulated from the normal rough 'n' tumble of partisan politics merely because of their biography seems absurd. There are any number of 9/11 widows. A few are big George W. Bush supporters, many are apolitical. I was honoured to receive an email the other day from Deena Gilbey, a British subject whose late husband worked on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center and remained in the building to help evacuate his colleagues. A few days later, U.S. Immigration sent Mrs. Gilbey a letter informing her that, as she was now a widow, her residence status had changed and they were enclosing a deportation order. Having legally admitted to the country the men who killed her husband, the U.S. government's first act after having enabled his murder is to further traumatize the bereaved.
The heartless brain-dead bonehead penpusher who sent out that letter is far more "mean-spirited" than Miss Coulter at full throttle. Yet Mrs. Gilbey isn't courted by the TV bookers the way the Jersey Girls are. Hundreds of soldiers' moms believe their sons died in a noble and just cause in Iraq, but it's Cindy Sheehan, who calls Bush "the biggest terrorist in the world," who gets speaking engagements across America, Canada, Britain, Europe and Australia. When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi winds up pushing up daisy cutters, the media don't go to Paul Bigley, who rejoiced that the man who decapitated his brother would now "rot in hell," nor the splendid Aussie Douglas Wood, who called his kidnappers "arseholes," nor his fellow hostage Ulf Hjertstrom, a Swede who's invested 50,000 bucks or so in trying to track down the men who kidnapped him and visit a little reciprocal justice on them. No, instead, the media rush to get the reaction of Michael Berg, who thinks Bush is "the real terrorist" rather than the man who beheaded his son.
But it wasn't until Ann Coulter pointed it out that you realize how heavily the Democratic party is invested in irreproachable biography. For example, John Kerry's pretzel-twist of a war straddle in the 2004 campaign relied mainly on former senator Max Cleland, a triple amputee from a Vietnam grenade accident whom the campaign dispatched to stake out Bush's Crawford ranch that summer. Maybe he's still down there. It's gotten kinda crowded on the perimeter since then, what with Cindy Sheehan et al. But the idea is that you can't attack what Max Cleland says about war because, after all, you've got most of your arms and legs and he hasn't. This would normally be regarded as the unworthy tactic of snake-oil-peddling shyster evangelists and, indeed, the Dems eventually scored their perfect Elmer Gantry moment. In 2004, in the gym of Newton High School in Iowa, Senator John Edwards skipped the dreary Kerry-as-foreign-policy-genius pitch and cut straight to the Second Coming. "We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases . . . When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of that wheelchair and walk again." Mr. Reeve had died the previous weekend, but he wouldn't have had Kerry and Edwards been in the White House. Read his lips: no new crutches. The healing balm of the Massachusetts Messiah will bring the crippled and stricken to their feet, which is more than Kerry's speeches ever do for the able-bodied. As the author remarks, "If one wanted to cure the lame, one could reasonably start with John Edwards."
"Ann Coulter: America's fiery, blond commentatrix. One crack about 9/11 widows and the author of Godless loses her audience. Too bad," by Mark Steyn, McLeans, June 21, 2006
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June 11, 2006
John Witherspoon: Forgotten Founder
[John] Witherspoon was particularly important as a political activist, an advocate for and architect of American independence. As early as 1774, in an essay called “Thoughts on American Liberty,” [3-page pdf] he wrote that “We are firmly determined never to submit to, and do deliberately prefer war with all its horrors and even extermination itself, to slavery riveted upon us and our posterity.” He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the only clergyman among that group of fifty-six. In May 1776, when the colonies teetered on the edge of war with England, he preached a sermon titled “Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men.” [html] The church historian William Warren Sweet called it “one of the most influential pulpit utterances during the whole course of the war.” Arguing that “There is not a single instance in history, in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire,” Witherspoon articulated a link between spiritual and temporal liberty in a way that that spoke vividly to the passions of the moment. In July 1776, when the question of succession was hotly debated and one delegate argued that the country was not yet “ripe” for independence, Witherspoon shot back: “In my judgement the country is not only ripe for the measure, but in danger of becoming rotten for the want of it.”
"The forgotten founder: John Witherspoon," by Roger Kimball, The New Criterion, June, 2006
More
- "John Witherspoon: 1722-1794" - biography from ColonialHall.com
- John Witherspoon - from Wikipedia
- "John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic," by Jeffry H. Morrison, hardcover, 2005
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May 27, 2006
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams - knuckleheads?
Here's a curious trivia tidbit from U.S. history: In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams took leave from their Europe-based diplomatic duties and traveled to Stratford-upon-Avon to visit the home of William Shakespeare. Not much was recorded of the occasion, but one fact of their pilgrimage to the Bard's birthplace stands out: At some point during the tour, the two American statesmen brandished pocketknives, carved a few slivers from a wooden chair alleged to have been Shakespeare's, and spirited them home as souvenirs.In retrospect, it's easy to look back on this incident and conclude that -- in terms of travel protocol, at least -- Jefferson and Adams were complete knuckleheads. The thing is, I haven't seen any evidence to prove that, as world-wandering travelers, our quest for souvenirs has become any more logical or dignified in the last 220 years.
"Why We Buy Dumb Souvenirs," by Rolf Potts, Traveling Light, May 9, 2006
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April 03, 2006
"Being a Man: Harvey Mansfield ponders the male of the species"
The women who champion Eve Ensler's production [The Vagina Monologues] are rightly concerned about the problem of male violence. But the known solution is to teach boys (and men) to be gentlemen. "A gentleman," says Mansfield, "is a man who is gentle out of policy, not weakness; he can be depended upon not to snarl or attack a woman when he has the advantage or feels threatened." And any gentlewoman or "lady" is naturally more suited for the task of civilizing a vulgar, barbarous male than a whole army of gender warriors.
"Being a Man: Harvey Mansfield ponders the male of the species," by Christina Hoff Sommers, a review of "Manliness," by Harvey C. Mansfield (Yale 2006), The Weekly Standard, April 10, 2006
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March 25, 2006
Lillian Hellman - mean girl
The saga of Dottie and Lilly may be sad, but it's almost comical, too. Probably the first to smile about it would be Parker herself. She always imagined the hereafter as paradise, a sort of luxury hotel with hot and cold running dogs. Little did she imagine that settling permanently would require a Homeric journey of twenty-one years. More galling, her real-life coda—afterlife in a tin can—doomed her to spend fifteen of those years hanging around Wall Street, the symbol of everything she hated, followed by eternal rest in Baltimore, another place not to her taste, a short distance from a parking lot (Parker didn't drive). One of her oh-let's-kill-ourselves verses (aptly titled "Coda") concludes with the polite request: "Kindly direct me to hell."She should have been a lot more careful about what she asked for.
"Estate of mind," by Marion Meade on Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman, BookForum, April/May 2006
What I remember most vividly about Lillian Hellman are the American Express commercials she made ...
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March 15, 2006
Las Vegas and America
The best piece explaining the ethos of Las Vegas (and the American West more generally,) is a short essay by Joan Didion entitled "7000 Romaine, Los Angeles." In it, she explains that Howard Hughes founded modern Las Vegas in 1967 because he, a reclusive insomniac, couldn't find a place to buy a cheeseburger in L.A. at three o'clock in the morning—so he created a whole city to cater to that need. It had nothing to do with sin or sex, but rather the perpetual American desire to reinvent oneself in a place where conventional expectations don't apply. Hughes' transformation of Las Vegas cleaned the city up: Mob influence was eliminated, and the Nevada Gaming Commission put the whole casino industry under tight regulatory controls (not necessarily tighter, of course, than the way prostitution is regulated in Amsterdam or Hamburg). Today the Bellagio, the Luxor and the MGM Grand are more like family-friendly theme parks than gambling halls. So it's ersatz and safe, but it hasn't pretended to be anything else for many years now. The Mormons, after all, are the religious group with the deepest roots throughout Nevada.What you see when you stand in a buffet line in a Las Vegas casino is the real America: ordinary working- and middle-class Americans, with kids in tow, who want to be entertained. (You remark that you had a hard time finding America's "fat epidemic"; try a buffet.) Many sophisticates from the East look upon all of this with horror, but it's not Las Vegas they're reacting to. What they find distasteful is the American demos itself, with all of its excess and energy.
"It Doesn't Stay in Vegas," a discussion between Bernard-Henri Lévy and Francis Fukuyama, The American Interest
It is impossible to think of Howard Hughes without seeing the apparently bottomless gulf between what we say we want and what we do want, between what we officially admire and secretly desire, between, in the largest sense, the people we marry and the people we love. In a nation which increasingly appears to prize social virtues, Howard Hughes remains not merely antisocial but grandly, brilliantly, surpassingly, asocial. He is the last private man, the dream we no longer admit.
Joan Didion, U.S. essayist. “7000 Romaine, Los Angeles,” Slouching Towards Bethlehem
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March 03, 2006
"Islamic truths" - 4
But to look at angry Islam's reaction on television each night forces the question of what might be possible if all the lost energy of thousands of rioting Muslims went into the villages of Aceh to rebuild lost homes or into Kashmir to construct schools.In fact, the most glaring truth is that Islam's mobsters fear the West has it right: that we have perfected the very system Islam's holy scriptures urged them to learn and practice. And having failed in their mission to lead their masses, they seek any excuse to demonize those of us in the West and to try to bring us down. They know they are losing the ideological struggle for hearts and minds, for life in all its different dimensions, and so they prepare themselves, and us, for Armageddon by starting fires everywhere in a display of Islamic unity intended to galvanize the masses they cannot feed, clothe, educate or house.
This is not Islam. And the faster its truest believers stand up and demonstrate its values and principles by actions, not words, the sooner a great religion will return to its rightful role as guide for nearly a quarter of humanity.
"Islamic truths," by Mansoor Ijaz, Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2006
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March 01, 2006
Civil Society
[C]ivil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient.
"Cartoon Debate: The case for mocking religion," by Christopher Hitchens, Slate, February 4, 2006
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February 26, 2006
"Islamic truths" - 3
The second truth — one that the West needs to come to grips with — is that there is no such human persona as a "moderate Muslim." You either believe in the oneness of God or you don't. You either believe in the teachings of his prophet or you don't. You either learn those teachings and apply them to the circumstances of life in the country you have chosen to live in, or you shouldn't live there.Haters of Islam use the simplicity and elegance of its black-and-white rigor for devious political advantage by classifying the Koran's religious edicts as the cult-like behavior of fanatics. The West would win a lot of hearts and minds if it only showed Islam as it really is — telling the story, for example, that the prophet Muhammad was one of the great commodity traders of all time because he based his dealings on uniquely Muslim values, or that the reason he had multiple wives was not for the sake of sex but to give proper homes to the children of women made widows during a time of war. The cartoon imbroglio offered Western media an opportunity to portray the prophet in his many dignified dimensions, not just the distorted ones; sadly, there were few takers.
"Islamic truths," by Mansoor Ijaz, Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2006
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February 23, 2006
"Islamic truths" - 2
The first truth is that most Muslim ideologues are hypocrites. What has Osama bin Laden done for the victims of the 2004 tsunami or the shattered families who lost everything in the Pakistani earthquake last year? He did not build one school, offer one loaf of bread or pay for one vaccination. And yet he, not the devout Muslim doctors from California and Iowa who repair broken limbs and lives in the snowy peaks of Kashmir, speaks the loudest for what Muslims allegedly stand for. He has succeeded in presenting himself as the defender of Islam's poor, and the Western media has taken his jihadist message all the way to the bank.The hypocrisy only starts there. Muslims and Arabs have done pitifully little to help improve the capacity of the Palestinian people to be good neighbors to their Israeli brethren. Take the money spent by any Middle Eastern royal family at a London hotel or Geneva resort during one month and you could build enough schools and medical clinics to take care of 1,000 Palestinian children for a year. Yet rather than educate and feed Palestinian and Muslim children so they may learn to settle differences through dialogue and debate, instead of by throwing rocks and wearing bombs, the Muslim "haves" put on a few telethons to raise paltry sums for the "have nots" to alleviate the guilt over their palatial gilded cages.
"Islamic truths," by Mansoor Ijaz, Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2006
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February 13, 2006
Free speech
As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate.
"Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."
Thus the hapless Sean McCormack, reading painfully slowly from what was reported as a prepared government statement. How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean "unacceptable"? That it should be forbidden? And how abysmal that a "spokesman" cannot distinguish between criticism of a belief system and slander against a people. However, the illiterate McCormack is right in unintentionally comparing racist libels to religious faith. Many people have pointed out that the Arab and Muslim press is replete with anti-Jewish caricature, often of the most lurid and hateful kind. In one way the comparison is hopelessly inexact. These foul items mostly appear in countries where the state decides what is published or broadcast. However, when Muslims republish the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or perpetuate the story of Jewish blood-sacrifice at Passover, they are recycling the fantasies of the Russian Orthodox Christian secret police (in the first instance) and of centuries of Roman Catholic and Lutheran propaganda (in the second). And, when an Israeli politician refers to Palestinians as snakes or pigs or monkeys, it is near to a certainty that he will be a rabbi (most usually Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the leader of the disgraceful Shas party) and will cite Talmudic authority for his racism. For most of human history, religion and bigotry have been two sides of the same coin, and it still shows.
Therefore there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general. And the Bush administration has no business at all expressing an opinion on that. If it is to say anything, it is constitutionally obliged to uphold the right and no more. You can be sure that the relevant European newspapers have also printed their share of cartoons making fun of nuns and popes and messianic Israeli settlers, and taunting child-raping priests. There was a time when this would not have been possible. But those taboos have been broken.
"Cartoon Debate: The case for mocking religion," by Christopher Hitchens, Slate, February 4, 2006
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January 18, 2006
"Our universities today have become our most intellectually corrupt institutions"
Our universities today have become our most intellectually corrupt institutions. University administrators must lie and deny that they use racial quotas and preferences in admissions, when they devote much of their energy to doing just that. They must pledge allegiance to diversity, when their campuses are among the least politically diverse parts of our society, with speech codes that penalize dissent and sometimes violent suppression of conservative opinion.
"The Beautiful People vs. The Dutiful People," by Michael Barone, Commentray, January 16, 2006
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January 10, 2006
Leaving the American cultural left
Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos.I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together.
I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.
"Leaving the left - I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity," by Keith Thompson, San Francisco Chronicle, May 22, 2005
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January 01, 2006
Canada
Canada is the perfect place for American quitters, as it evidences self-loathing masquerading as self-congratulation.
"Welcome to Canada, The Great White Waste of Time," by Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard, March 21, 2005
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November 11, 2005
"Where are the Atheist's hospitals, or soup kitchens?"
They're state-run, supported by taxpayers....
Let's see, we have scores of Baptist Hospitals, Method Hospitals, Jewish Hospitals, Catholic Hospitals, etc., etc.. Each of these have 'outreach' programs both here and in the most dismal places on earth, staffed with dedicated medical doctors and nurses. Where oh where are the Atheist's hospitals, or soup kitchens? I, perhaps somewhat leaning to your ideology, am not so religious... but I am married to one of the most delightful, beautiful and dedicated Catholics on this earth. I delight in her absolute faith, her praying, her laughter, her zest for life, her acceptance of those of lesser faith (like me), her tolerance. All which seems so absent from the liberal atheist.
"Atheist Hospitals," an email to Jonah Goldberg, NRO, November 9, 2004
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