Although not hard core, I fancy myself a bit of collector – primarily New York Mets and Beatles memorabilia – but I concede to being out of my league on this one. Therefore, from the perspective of a wet-behind-the-ears, low-level, minor-league pack rat, I must ask … How exactly does one display singed hair?
I’m sure that among those bad-to-the-bone, big-time collectors who make it their business to scarf up everything from Hollywood ear wax secretions to the fruits of a good rock and roll nose picking, the quandry of how to prominently showcase the burnt hair of a dead pop singer poses no problem.
To me, however, it is a mystery.
Under glass?
In baggies?
As part of a multi-container body hair display case?
I don’t know.
Once I heard that Michael Jackson’s burnt hair was up for sale, I knew this would keep me awake nights.
Did you know that Elvis Presley was not only seen at the Payless Shoe Source on North Avalon Street in Memphis, but he is contemplating a state senate run as an Independent? I know this is so because I read it on the internet.
Were you also aware that only two days before Michael Jackson died, both Madonna and Dick Cheney were seen tinkering with the gas meter outside of Jackson’s California home? I know this is so because I read it on the internet.
And have you read about the latest evidence that proves Desi Arnaz had a role in the murder of John Lennon? I know this is so because I read it on the internet.
So then, how does a Pulitzer Prize winning jouranalist and Professor of Journalism at Hunter College in New York – a professor, mind you – verify the accuracy of an allegation regarding a well-known celebrity? How exactly, in the name of professionalism and integrity, does she get all of her journalistic ducks in a row before speaking publicly on a highly controversial subject? How does that professor, who has presumably spent her entire professional life in the realm of investigating the unknown, conveying the news, uncovering the truth, and mentoring those who wish to forge their professional paths in the fields of objective and opinion journalism, go about getting to the bottom of something that is causing such a stir?
She googles, of course.
Such is the case with Karen Hunter.
Indeed, she is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a successful author, and a teacher of Journalism, among other accomplishments.
But she is not too happy that talk show host Rush Limbaugh is interested in becoming part owner of the St. Louis Rams football team. In fact, her discontentment with Limbaugh’s bid – according to her – is based, in part, on negative things she found about him on the internet.
During a segment on MSNBC yesterday afternoon, Hunter – the obvious choice for a discussion of football ownership (author of such dazzling titles as “Pimpology: The 48 Laws Of the Game” and “On the Down Low: A Journey Into the Lives of “Straight” Black Men Who Sleep With Men”) – showed the nation why her journalistic prowess is in such high demand.
Hunter said:
I can just see the visions of plantation grandeur dancing in (Limbaugh’s) head as we speak. Yeah, it doesn’t make you a racist to want to own a team. But, it does kind of with all his history question his power position over these players who make millions of dollars and his ability to be able to move them around, deny them contracts and do whatever he wants willy-nilly. It’s the ultimate power position to be an owner of an NFL team.
Plantation grandeur?
If that phrase alone – coming from the mouth of an allegedly well-read, well-spoken, highly-respected journalist – does not summon the gastric secretions to bubble up into your throat, you need to have your decency meter re-calibrated.
What in the name of Sam Hill is she talking about?
Moving people around and denying players contracts are what all owners in the National Football League do, Professor Hunter.
And yes, there are plenty of conservative white owners in the National Football League – and they all have a large number of black athletes working for them.
My Lord, do knee-jerk, victimization-happy liberals ever listen to the things they say?
But hold on … that was not the sweetest plum to come from the intellectual tree of the Pimpology Queen.
Hunter went on to say:
You even put up two of the statements he said about the NFL looking like the Crips and the Bloods. He even said that Dr. Martin Luther King, his killer, James Earl Ray should have a medal given to him, a medal of honor. He says, ‘We miss you, James.’ You can go online as to the top 10 Rush Limbaugh racist comments.”
Is there anything else that needs to be said?
“You can go online …” she says.
Such rectitude. Such honor.
Karen Hunter
Incidentally, I happened to read online that Karen Hunter did not author her own books, and instead hired a twenty-one year old white girl to do the job, so it must be true.
I also read online that she had a torrid affair with a West African man who made his fortune in the sex slave trade, so it must be accurate.
I’m still a bit sketchy as to whether or not the reports of her transexuality are true, but I’ve read it enough times on the internet to believe there must be some truth in it.
Right?
The fact is, if Limbaugh had even come close to ever saying the reprehensible things that are being attributed to him by his enemies, it would have, by now, seen more reprintings than the King James version of the Bible. And because there are liberals who are actually paid to sit down, record, and take out of context every word that comes from his lips, the sound bites extracted from such despicable commentary would have been played and replayed incessantly via every news outlet this side of his golden EIB microphone.
There can be no doubt about that.
Talk show host Dennis Prager, never one to resort to name calling – and one of the most cordial and civil talk show hosts in the country – announced today that he will begin referring to MSNBC as M-Sewer-N-B-C until “they apologize and do right after this. It is now, in my mind, the ‘Sewer Network.’”
For me, MSNBC became permanently gutter worthy the day Keith Olbermann accused talk show host Michael Medved of endorsing and supporting American slavery.
By the way, as far the “ultimate power position” is concerned, I wonder if Karen Hunter has ever heard of Barack H. Obama?
An important new blog has been added to the Roman Around blog roll.
It is called Keep America Safe and is the creation of Liz Cheney, William Kristol and Debra Burlingame.
Their mission statement, in part, reads as follows:
The mission of Keep America Safe is to provide information for concerned Americans about critical national security issues. Keep America Safe seeks to influence public policy by encouraging dialogue between American citizens and their elected representatives in order to produce legislation and executive action that enhances the national security of the United States.
…
Keep America Safe believes the United States can only defeat our adversaries and defend our interests from a position of strengh. We know that America has, for 233 years, been an unparalleled force for good in the world, that our fighting forces are the best the world has ever known, and that the world is a safer place when America is trusted by our allies and feared and respected by our enemies. Keep America Safe will make the case for an unapologetic approach to fighting terrorism around the world, for victory in the wars this country fights, for democracy and human rights, and for a strong American military that is needed in the dangerous world in which we live.
On the Keep America Safe home page is a terrific video, professionally produced called Rhetoric vs Reality.
Please check it out, bookmark the site, and visit regularly.
Eleanor Iselin - one of the greatest female villains in movie history
Can you believe that conservative commentator Sean Hannity of Fox News had the audacity to compare MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to Angela Lansbury’s character in the original version of The Manchurian Candidate, Eleanor Iselin? Can you believe he then had the nerve to say, “At some point somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into her head and she’s going to explode like a seagull eating an Alka Seltzer”?
Nice, Sean.
Loathsome, isn’t it?
Disgusting, don’t you think?
(I see a whole lot of nodding heads out there).
Can you believe the level of incivility that exists in today’s America?
What, in the name of heaven, is going on in this country?
Jamming a CO2 pellet in someone’s head?
Is there no better way for a broadcast professional to make his or her point than to start woolgathering a political opponent’s murder?
What is most surprising is that the maninstream media has not exploded with coverage of Hannity’s less-than-genteel commentary on shooting Maddow in the head. He is, after all, an unflinching, uncompromising, set-in-stone conservative. He’s one of those angry, hateful white men who lives in the deep, dark recesses of the right-wing. He is one of those who could be pushed to violence, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fears.
There can be only two reasons why Hannity’s bullet-in-the-head hate-speech is not plastered across every front page and home page across the map.
Either every single newspaper in the United States suffered a debilitating printing press breakdown at roughly the same time skilled swastika-carrying hackers (dispatched by Ann Coulter) wiped out all references to the incident across the World Wide Web, or it didn’t happen at all.
(Cue Jeopardy music)
Actually, the incident did happen – but it did not involve conservative Sean Hannity and liberal Rachel Maddow.
(I apologize for the ruse. It was one of those “driving home the point” moments that regularly frustrates the less-nuanced among us)
In reality, it involved MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and talk show host Rush Limbaugh – and it was the liberal Matthews who actually said, “At some point somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp.”
Now you know why no one’s heard of this.
Matthews is a card-carrying, have-a-seat-at-the-head-table liberal.
That, and no one watches MSNBC.
Here’s the entire quote in context:
You guys see “Live and Let Die,” the great Bond film with Yaphet Kotto as the bad guy, Mr. Big? In the end they jam a big CO2 pellet in his face and he blew up. I have to tell you, Rush Limbaugh is looking more and more like Mr. Big, and at some point somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into his head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp. That day may come. Not yet. But we’ll be there to watch. I think he’s Mr. Big, I think Yaphet Kotto. Are you watching, Rush?
“We’ll be there to watch?”
Nice, Chris.
Loathsome, isn’t it?
Disgusting, don’t you think?
(Isn’t anyone going to nod their head?)
Can you believe the level of incivility that exists in today’s America?
That closing “are you watching, Rush?” was the giveaway. Matthews, whose anemic ratings trail even Rachel Maddow’s in the MSNBC line-up, is desperately hoping someone—anyone—is watching. And if it takes publicly fantasizing about the violent death of a political opponent, well, all’s apparently fair in love and ratings in Matthews’ mind.
Note: Matthews didn’t even get his mean-spirited metaphor right. “Looking more and more like Mr. Big”? Wrong. If anything, the suddenly svelte Limbaugh is looking less and less like him.
Honestly, if there is anything more enchanting than listening to lefties prioritize things, I’ve not yet found it.
Hip-hop pioneer Russell Simmons is astounded that we are all still breathing.
In a piece at the Huffington Post called “The Indictment of America,” he writes, “With horrible abuses of animals, the planet, and human kind, it’s amazing that we are still here.”
Before even commenting on the content of his article, I must say that the title of his piece is simply priceless. Anytime the words “indictment” and “America” are used in the same sentence, you can rest assured that liberals from sea to shining sea will be salivating.
Also, note that in the trio of horrific realities threatening this country he lists the abuse of animals first, followed by the abuse of Mother Earth, and finally “human kind.” Remember, to most leftists, human beings are like gobs of phlegm in the throat of nature.
(I’d have assumed that the planet would come first, seeing as if there is no Earth, animals would be homeless).
Regardless of the order, Simmons is clearly troubled. He sees an America that is free-falling out of control.
But, it isn’t metastasizing secularization or the erosion of traditional values that are contributing to the demise of the country. It isn’t the culture of easy sex, gratuitous violence, and instant gratification – regularly embodied and exemplified in the very music Mr. Simmons has made his fortune in – that is contributing to his feared decline of America. It isn’t pandemic multiculturalism and moral equivalency that is eating away at the very fabric of the United States.
It’s none of these things.
Instead, according to Simmons – scholar, thinker, historian - it is America’s “lack of compassion and love” that is destroying us.
To Simmons, the very nation that is provably the most giving, most accommodating and most charitable in all of world history is lacking the necessary quantities of “compassion and love” to fulfill its promise. (Of course, that can mean anything from tax rates on the rich not being high enough, to America holding on tightly to its racist past by not supporting the Messiah-In-Chief).
True, this is the nation that allots more than half of its annual budget to entitlement programs. This is the nation that sent $15 billion to Africa to help the victims of AIDS. This is the nation that, by law, provides free health care, via emergency rooms and free clinics, to anyone (including illegals) who asks for it. This is the nation that is always the first to come to the aid of natural disaster victims the world over. This is the nation with the most extensive network of charities, non-profit organizations, faith-based help groups and volunteer institutions on Earth.
But that’s just not good enough.
Simmons laments:
Our progressive president is so loving that the whole world is praying for us to lift ourselves up, yet we are still so afraid. And we have allowed hurtful, spiteful and small-minded people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to scare the love out of us.
America, our country is under indictment. And we will be found guilty if we don’t act. If we allow these nasty, malicious people, who harbor so much hate with views that separate us from the rest of world, to continue to tell us how to think, we will be found guilty of charge one. If we allow so-called “men of faith,” who don’t practice a word Jesus Christ preached, to bully us and scare us, we will be found guilty of charge two. If we allow leaders of our country who claim that they represent us, when they really represent big business and corporate greed, to create policy in our name, we will be found guilty of charge three. If we allow leaders of a political party that only know one word, and that is “no,” to work against the best interests of our country, we will not only be found guilty of charge four, we will be sentenced by God to self-destruction.
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn beck, blah, blah, blah … The compulsory allusion to hateful, uncompassionate, multi-phobic conservative radio talkers is, quite frankly, tedious and unimpressive.
However, most relevant is the first portion of Simmons’ quote – which is downright frightening.
President Obama is “so loving,” he says, that the whole world is “praying for us to lift ourselves up” and follow Barack Obama … into the light, presumably.
Barack Obama is love.
Obama loves us.
Obama loves all the little children of the world.
Obama has extended his loving arms and asked us all to follow him from the Land of Division (i.e., conservatism, American exceptionalism), to the Land of Compassion and Love (anywhere near him).
And if we don’t – if we refuse the undeniable truths set before us by Barack Obama, and if we choose to place our feet on more divisive paths (e.g., listening to conservative talk radio, watching Fox News) - we will all be found guilty … by God.
(I wonder how God will react when Mr. Simmons has the opportunity to explain his support of killing the unborn, his promulgation of destructive gangsta violence through his “art,” and putting other gods – like Obama – before Him.)
Indeed, the “Loving One” will show us the way; he will lead by example – because Islamo-Fascist terrorists are just waiting to be shown the way to peace by an American liberal.
(Pause for a deep breath).
As I re-read Simmons’ plea for all of us to fall in line - er, rally around Barack Obama, so that we the people can avoid God’s punishment, allow me a moment to school Mr. Simmons on a few of the finer points of compassion.
First of all, in terms of the monetary (which is, by far, the most important benchmark to leftists) Americans are the most compassionate people on the face of the planet, bar none.
It isn’t even close.
And despite liberal endeavors to commandeer the word, “compassion” is not correctly defined as tax-the-rich, big-government pacifism. Indeed, America offers her incalculable compassion in a surplus of ways, whether Mr. Simmons chooses to accept it or not – from the steadfast vocal support of those who struggle and oppose their repressive governments, to the liberating of millions from totalitarian regimes through military means. America comforts when comfort is needed. America assists when assistance is needed. America fights when fighting is needed.
Second, above all, affording fellow human beings the opportunity to be free from evil is the ultimate example of American compassion. In over two-hundred years, Americans have liberated more human beings than all of the other countries of the world combined. What greater measure of compassion can there be than in sacrificng one’s life so that others may live free from tyranny?
Seeing as Mr. Simmons is quick to play the Jesus card in putting forth his argument that Christ himself would want us to follow the “progressive” and “loving” foot steps of Barack Obama into the Promised Land, it’s necessary to counter with an important point I made last week in my piece Michael Moore, Sean Hannity and Loving Your Enemies.
(Keep in mind that Jesus was an observant Jew).
I wrote:
In the Torah – the first five books of the Bible – there is only one law that appears in each of those books. It is the commandment to kill those who have murdered the innocent. Genesis 9:6, for example, reads, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.”
…
God commands us, “Do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.” (Leviticus 19:16).
Mr. Simmons ought to remember …
Under Ronald Reagan, the policies of this nation resulted in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, thus freeing over 120 million human beings in Eastern Europe.
If not for the United States, 48 million South Koreans would be living under the oppressive thumb of the North.
If not for the United States, 20 million Taiwanese would be living under the oppressive thumb of Communist China.
If not for the United States, Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands, would not have been removed from power.
If not for the United States, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Middle East, would not have been removed from power, and 25 million people would not have been liberated.
I have to assume that these things matter to folks who claim to care about the innocent – like Simmons claims he does.
He continues by saying that he fears America is standing on its last “wobbly legs,” afraid that “the karmic effects of our negative actions will finally come home to roost.”
So, I must ask … what “negative actions” would Mr. Simmons be referring to? The same “actions,” perhaps, that President Barack Obama has made it his business to apologize for on several occasions while on foreign soil? And are these the same chickens that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright was clucking about during the presidential campaign season?
(Those nettlesome karmic effects will get you every time).
I must also ask … were America’s legs as “wobbly” under the previous President?
If I am to understand Simmons’ thinking – and please correct me if I am mistaken - America has gotten worse since the President’s inauguration in January because opposing Barack Obama is worse for the country than to have George W. Bush in the White House? Or has it actually gotten better since the end of Bush’s last term, but not nearly as good as it could be because of the people (like me) who openly oppose Barack Obama? Or is this all about Barack Obama simply being the long-awaited “agent of change” that all of us – even non-believers – need to put their “faith” in?
Can you say “religion?”
More precarious than Simmons’ fear of the insatiable and uncompromising karmic wheel are those other pesky “effects” that can prove even more problematic – like the ones that are inevitable when one operates from a position of weakness, as President Obama has done since taking office.
I am referring to the emboldening of America’s enemies; the fostering of uneasiness in long-time allies (such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel) as they wonder whether or not America can be counted on to stand by them; and the placing of terrorism-supporting despotic regimes on a plane of moral equivelency with freedom-loving nations.
The fact is, the world suffers when the United States is weakened. The world is a better place, a safer place, a more moral place because of the strength of the United States of America.
She is a good and noble nation.
Simmons writes:
(Obama) needs our support and he needs it now. I respected what he said on Saturday night at the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner, “I appreciate that many of you don’t believe progress has come fast enough. Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach.” Remember, they killed Mahatma Gandhi. They killed John F. Kennedy. They killed Martin Luther King. They killed Malcolm X. They killed Robert F. Kennedy. They killed Yitzhak Rabin. They killed many of the great dreamers. With all of the fearful men running our media, we no longer have to kill the dreamer, it is possible just to kill the dream.
They?
Note how Simmons’ specifically named Rush Limbuagh and Glenn Beck – conservatives – in his piece as being among the nasty and malicious who are inhibiting Obama and his good work. Is there any reason to believe that Simmons does not have them (or their staunch supporters) in mind when talking about “they” who do all of these dreamer killings?
Like the Islamic radical who killed Robert Kennedy?
Like the communist who killed John Kennedy?
Like the followers of Elijah Muhammed who killed Malcolm X?
They?
Here’s an exercise to try.
Go through the Simmons piece and substitute the words “Barack” and “Obama” with “George” and “Bush.” Then change the author’s name from Russell Simmons to Pat Robertson.
Any guesses on what Keith Olbermann would be talking about on his show tonight?
It isn’t uncommon for malevolent e-mails to find their way into my ever-unsuspecting “inbox.”
I am regularly asked why I have the effrontery to use the offensive phrase, “liberals and other children” in my hate-filled screed.
Admittedly, I use the expression, in small part, for effect (knowing it will trigger responses). It is rooted, however, in what I feel is an undeniable truth – namely, that liberals don’t bother thinking things through beyond the initial “feel good” step of whatever policy they’re advocating. They don’t bother asking the question, “What happens next?”
It is the sort of unsophisticated, undisciplined, unnuanced approach one would expect from the undeveloped, uncritical, unanalytic mind of a child. While adulthood is about dealing with, and understanding, consequences, liberalism is almost always about what feels good now.
The great Thomas Sowell calls it a lack of “Stage Two Thinking.”
The other thing that is indicative of modern liberalism is the notion that whatever is happening now is the worst ever seen by human kind. Whatever the situation or circumstance, no matter what has happened before, or what history has shown us, today’s challenges are commonly portrayed as the most extreme ever faced by Americans. Today’s complications and predicaments are unprecedented or unheard of.
Such is the reality when it comes to man-made global warming – or climate change – or whatever the phrase of the month is for liberalism’s latest disaster-to-end-all-disasters fairy-tale.
Last Friday, former Vice President Albert Gore spoke to 500 environmental journalists in Madison, Wisconsin. (I assume these environmental journalists rode their bicycles to the conference, used pens made out of cypress mulch and pomegranate juice, paper made out of regurgitated bovine saliva, and communicated with cups and strings instead of cell phones and lap tops).
Said Gore:
“We’re very close to that political tipping point. Never before in human history has a single generation been asked to make such difficult and consequential decisions.”
***Liberals and other children ALERT***
Words mean things.
“Never before” in all of human history has a generation had to make such difficult decisions.
Never!
In human history!
Powerful stuff, Al.
Whether it was the American Civil War ravaged generation of the 1860s, the American Independence seeking revolutionaries of the 1770s, or the Nazi and Imperial Japan fighting generation of the 1940s, no one in all of recorded existence has had to face the challenges or the “consequential decisions” that the squiggly light bulb generation is having to deal with today. The invasion of the European continent by the Allies in June, 1944 seems so inconsequential compared to the inherent dilemmas of paper or plastic. The decisions that led to the defeat and subsequent demise of the Soviet Union pale in comparison to the perplexities of multi-ply or single-ply toilet tissue. And if there is as mystifying an issue as to whether or not to succumb to the evil of notching up the thermostat during the winter, I am not aware of it.
Also interesting to note from the Gore chat is this little exercise in open and honest debate. From the Wisconsin State Journal:
Gore has been criticized for not publicly debating his position since the release of his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
In what organizers said was a rarity, Gore took half a dozen questions from journalists, including one from Phelim McAleer, an Irish filmmaker who asked Gore to address nine errors in his film identified by a British court in 2007.
Gore responded that the court ruling supported the showing of his film in British schools. When McAleer tried to debate further, his microphone was cut off by the moderators.
You don’t say.
Cut off by the moderators?
Has this been fact-checked?
Maybe it was a loose wire.
Or someone on Dick Cheney’s payroll.
In other news, record-low temperatures are threatening to destroy some of this season’s crop of potatoes in Idaho; record cold temperatures are being seen in Western Montana; and even in Austria, they are seeing the earliest snowfall ever recorded there.
Dammit, pay attention to your carbon footprints, people!
Admittedly, my meteorological skills have deteriorated since the advent of Doppler Radar, advanced computer modeling, and the end of magic marker forecasting on erasable white boards.
I’m not even sure I understand the difference between dew point and relative humidity.
And even though I think I am starting to get a handle on the enormity of the impending global warming catastrophe that awaits us all, I’m still wrestling with the finer details.
For instance, while I understand that rising temperatures can cause falling temperatures to trigger warming that can lead to widespread cooling, I’m still uncertain whether the original post-Industrial Revolution widespread cooling was the inevitable result of climactic shifts brought on by the original wave of man-made global warming – which would have, presumably, elicited the subsequent warming trends that preceded the current cooling trend – or if it was a temporary deviation that unwittingly led to the inevitable consequences that now face humankind due to the warming that is causing all the recent cooling. This, of course, doesn’t take into account the perils of global moderation, which has sparked the disasters of global temperateness, global normalcy, and global nothingness.
Still, there can no doubt that global warming threatens every living entity that occupies space on this planet; and nothing says “global warming” like snow in early October.
Snow could be coming to town as early as this weekend. That’s right, snow. Flurries and flakes.
The forecast says that Saturday night rain will turn into the white stuff early Sunday morning.
If the snow sticks, it would be the earliest recorded measurable snowfall in Chicago. The record was set just three years ago when it snowed on Oct. 12.
But it won’t be a complete anomaly – Chicagoans are accustomed to strange, disappointing weather.
Chicago has played host to October snowstorms before. Back in 1989 we got hit with 6.3 inches for the month.
What’s worse than the snow is the below freezing temperatures that are expected to accompany it.
October snow.
Go figure.
Call me uncompassionate if you like. Label me unsympathetic if it makes you feel better. Tell me I’m downright narcissistic, but feel free to put me down for a little “impending global disaster.”
What the world needs now is warming, sweet warming.
Get out to your garages and let your cars idle. Run your hair dryers. Stop recycling. Throw away your squiggly light bulbs. If you own cows, feed them legumes and get their flatulence makers working.
Beacuse of the prodigious triumphs of President Barack Obama in bringing the world ever-so closer to the ultimate objective of world peace – and because he is super cool (and not George W. Bush) – the Nobel Prize Committee has announced that Barack Obama’s award will not resemble the standard “Nobel Peace Prize” Medal.
Clearly, the standing of his accomplishments, along with the sheer magnitude of his very existence, demand something extraordinary.
The new design will closely resemble that of the Physics, Chemistry, Physiology and Literature medals on its face, but will feature President Obama’s likeness instead of Alfred Nobel’s.
The Obama design will be used on all medals beginning in 2010. Nobel’s name and likeness are being scrapped.
Nobel’s lack of messianic attributes is cited as the primary factor for his removal.
For his efforts in every field, President Obama is expected to win the balance of medals-formerly-known-as-Nobel next year.
In addition to the new medal design and nomenclature, no less than thirty-eight new medals are expected to be created in Obama’s name for the 2010 presentations, all of which are expected to be won by Barack Obama.
Yes, President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
But remember, perspective is crucial. Context is critical.
Take a moment and think about it.
This is the same Nobel Peace Prize awarded to global warming warrior Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change two years ago. A peace prize – because scientifically unfounded, unproven theories that induce global hysteria advance the cause of peace.
This is the same Nobel Peace Prize awarded to PLO leader – and murderous vermin – Yasser Arafat in 1994. A peace prize – because everyone knows a lifetime dedicated to destroying the State of Israel is at the very heart of nurturing and promoting peace.
It isn’t as if the meandering moral compass and twisted value set of those who hand out this particular award should be startling news to anyone.
What exactly is the big deal? What is the big surprise here?
Before too much energy is expended by pundits and wordsmiths commenting on the unmerited or inappropriate awarding of the Noble Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, pause for a moment, take a deep breath, and realize that this shouldn’t be shocking to anyone.
Perspective.
Laugh about it. Grab a cream soda. Relax.
Does it really matter who wins this particular award? Does this award really have anything to do with peace?
To be perfectly honest, I’m actually a bit surprised that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad didn’t go home with the prize. He hasn’t launched a single missile at Israel over the past year. Nothing says “peace” quite like not firing weapons at anyone.
The fact is the Nobel Peace Prize – along with all of the other honors handed out by world’s anti-American progressives – is a product of those who believe that the greatest threat to peace in the world is the United States. To them, America is the real obstacle to achieving international harmony and understanding. Barriers like American exceptionalism, the belief in the individual, free-market capitalism, and the fact that America is the most powerful nation on Earth only hurt the peace process.
The interesting aspect of all of this is the fact that the deadline for nominations came on February 1, 2009 – a mere ten days into Barack Obama’s presidency. According to the committee – his lack of tangible achievement or accomplishment not withstanding – the President is receiving the award because of his ”extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
That may be the most meaningless sentence never to come from one of President Obama’s teleprompters.
Pray tell, what “extraordinary efforts” could have possibly taken place during the first ten days of his Presidency – and the campaign-intensive year that preceded it – that secured the gold for him?
I don’t know the answer to that, of course – being the war hungry, xenophobic racist monster that I am – but, just imagine if the deadline for deciding who wins the award had been October 1st instead of February 1st.
What might have been?
What if his refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama was thrown into the Peace Prize mix? What if his standing by, with that deer-in-the-headlights charm of his, and saying absolutely nothing while the government of Iran slaughtered its own citizens was taken into consideration? What if a few more apologies for his country on foreign soil could have been taken into account? I can only imagine how it would have impacted the decision to give him the award. A new award might have been created just for him – the Nobel Prize for Superhuman Greatness, the Nobel Prize for Total Awesomeness, the Nobel Prize for Coolest Demigod.
Of course, Bracak Obama is receiving only one Nobel Prize this year.
Hopefully, the President’s unmistakable achievements in Chemistry, Physics and Literature will be recognized next year.
Still, nothing emasculates like the Nobel Peace Prize.
The real question is … How will this affect President Obama’s decision making on what needs to be done in Afghanistan? Or Iran? Can the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize dare to come across as an Afghanistan surge-endorsing hawk? Or a nuclear-program busting tough guy in Iran?
If the world were void of clichés, empty bromides and feckless platitudes, how exactly would a leftist fill the time while being interviewed? If they could not rely on silly slogans and bumper sticker smugness, what else would they have to offer that could be passed off as substantive?
At the great Ace of Spades blog, Ace posted a portion of an exchange between fuzzy-bunny film maker Michael Moore and conservative commentator Sean Hannity. It was one of those back-and-forth television time-killers that changes no one’s mind, rarely goes beyond the time-constrained familiar superficiality of left versus right, and draws high-fives from supporters who believe their guy was head and shoulders better than the other.
(Of course, I love that kind of television).
Without actually posting the video here, I’d like focus on one small portion of the exchange between the two.
The segment in question involved Moore – thinker, philosopher, scholar – asking Hannity if he loved Al Qaeda because of Jesus’ commandment to “love your enemies.”
Hannity responded, “I love them in the sense I want to destroy them.”
Indeed, as Ace points out, it was a funny line – although I am skeptical that Hannity actually meant it that way. I am more inclined to believe that his response was the first thing off the top of his head as he tried to keep pace with the portly movie maker. (I certainly could be wrong).
Either way, it was a good line.
Ace then posts the following:
Incidentally… Hannity’s line is funny, but glibly dodges the question through humor. I’m curious how religious folks resolve this question in their minds.
As I’m not religious, I just flat-out hate Al Qaeda and feel no need to even attempt to “love” them, except in a Hannity sense of love. (Which, given that love is a battlefield, actually does make some sense, but I digress.)
The left loves trotting this chestnut out (and here Michael Moore trots out nothing but cliches, cant, and chestnuts, making Sean Hannity look positively contemplative), but I am curious as to the response to this.
He loves America, except for everything about it
There is a trap that most anti-religious types, like Moore, seem to stumble into that predicates the type of hostility they are prone to exude when confronting people of faith. Often they forget that Christians (or any religious people, for that matter) are as human as atheists and agnostics. Religious people do not claim to be less imperfect than anyone else. Indeed, they are subject to the same fallibilities and frailties as those who reject God. Yet, somehow, folks like Moore – who make a living at scoffing at the traditions and institutions of America, and routinely pull out words like “hypocrite” when describing a person of faith who stumbles – believe they are exposing the fraud of religion when those who try to live more righteous lives fall short.
Leftists use the human condition as a “gotcha” tool.
Another trap that angry anti-God types fall into is the one that suggests that loving others somehow precludes justice. The fact is, punishing those who commit crimes is neither related to nor dependant on love. One can love another, or pray for another, or wish for their genuine repentance, but still understand that crimes committed by that person must be punished.
What does one have to do with the other?
I can love my daughter or spouse, but if they are guilty of a crime, they must be punished appropriately.
Indeed, both Jews and Christians are commanded to love each other as individuals, but not necessarily to love groups, associations, or nations that perpetrate evil.
But even if one believes we are, so what? Who says that one cannot love someone and still fight them? (Think of Jesus and the money changers in the Temple).
The bottom line is … when an individual is engaged in an evil action, it is incumbent of us – indeed, God commands us – to stop that individual from harming the innocent. Even if violence is required, there is no inherent contradiction in stopping the evil-doer and loving that individual.
There is such a thing a moral violence.
Loving someone in not synonymous with letting someone “off the hook.”
Think of the famous verse from the Book of Matthew:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” (Mat. 5:38-39)
Does anyone truly believe that “turning the other cheek” really means one is to permit evil to run rampant? As talk show host Dennis Prager often says, “In the context of World War II, do you think ‘turn the other cheek’ means that the United States should have rolled over and offered the West Coast of California to the Imperial Japanese after they bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii?”
Pacifists have an unworkable interpretation of this passage. Imagine applying the pacifist view to a woman being raped? Does a father tell his daughter to not resist the rapist? Pacifist father to daughter being raped: “Don’t resist the evil man, honey. Remember, Jesus said, ‘Love your enemy.’ If he wants you for one hour, stay with him two.”
Rather, this teaching is similar to Paul’s teaching, “Do not avenge yourselves,” knowing that the government is to bring wrath and vengeance against the perpetrator. The command to not avail oneself of “an-eye-for-an-eye” is not a strictly New Testament concept. Many falsely presume that this is a New Testament teaching which opposes Old Testament teachings. However, the command to avoid personal vengeance was just as applicable to Old Testament believers as to us. “Do not say, ‘I will do to him just as he has done to me; I will render to the man according to his work” (Prov. 24:29). Graciousness from the believer in his personal life is an enduring virtue and not a new concept.
Enyart goes on to explain that there is a distinction between individuals and governments, and that Jesus said so in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.” (Mat. 5:25-26)
Jesus did not tell the judge or the officer to turn the other cheek or to void the law. God wants the governing authorities to uphold the law without mercy. (Heb. 10:28; Rom. 13:3-4)
In the Torah – the first five books of the Bible – there is only one law that appears in each of those books. It is the commandment to kill those who have murdered the innocent. Genesis 9:6, for example, reads, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.”
For me, as a Jew, this commandment is central to understanding how precious human life truly is. A murderer has no right to his own life if he has stolen the life of an innocent.
God requires us to fight evil.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his book The Book of Jewish Values, writes:
Regarding those who set out to murder others, the Book of Exodus teaches that if a thief tunnels into a house at night and is discovered, the householder has the right to kill him. At first reading, this ruling seems surprising, since Jewish law forbids killing someone who is committing a property offense. However, the Torah assumes that a thief breaking into a person’s house at night, aware that it is probably occupied, is prepared to kill the householder; therefore, if the householder preemptively kills the thief, “there is no bloodguilt” (Exodus 22:1).
The sole exception is when the householder has reason to be certain that the thief has no intention of killing him or her (see Exodus 22:2).
In the Talmud’s language, “If someone wishes to kill you, get up and kill him first.”
The logic informing this Talmudic teaching applies to national as well as individual threats.
Think the War on Terror.
God commands us, “Do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.” (Leviticus 19:16).
If there is a better, more appropriate way to “love thy neighbor” than defending him against evil, I don’t know of one.
On Tuesday’s edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Michael Medved spent the first portion of the first hour explaining why he openly and unapologetically celebrated the failed bid to bring the 2016 Olympic games to Chicago.
With his usual blend of passion and articulation, he said:
The notion that we were celebrating when Chicago was turned away from hosting the Olympics was not because we were celebrating a defeat for America.
We were celebrating a victory for America!
It is a bad thing to host the Olympics. Look at the bloody record, for goodness’ sake! Look at the recent cities that have hosted the Olympics.
It’s done wonders for Athens.
It’s one of the reasons , by the way, the Socialists just won in Greece – because the whole country, and the whole economy, was screwed up … They spent everything, tax money, on hosting the Olympics, and it does no good for ordinary people.
Look, I thought folks on the left were opposed to corporate welfare. The Olympics are the ultimate form of corporate welfare.
…
I don’t like the Olympics. I despise them. I think it’s a scam.
Good for him.
The intellectual heavyweights of the left who have the chutzpah to equate patriotism with support for bringing the Olympic Games to Chicago not only sound preposterously desperate in their attempts to demonize Republicans, they simply haven’t a leg to stand (or wobble) on when attempting to convince the rest of us how much America has “lost.”
To hear it from Leftocrats, the ramifications of the cataclysm that was Chicago’s rejcetion will linger for a long time.
How America will endeavor to survive such a crushing blow is unclear.
Maybe some more government expansion.
Incidentally, the highlight of that portion of the Medved show was a caller from Chicago – a Police Officer named John who shed a little light on why the Games bypassing the Windy City was a good thing.
He said:
I just want to make a couple of quick points. I actually live in Chicago. I work for the Chicago Police Department, and I can tell you this: Most of the cops I know wanted no part of these Olympics. We’re already stretched as it is. Daley hasn’t hired any cops for a long time. We normally lose three to four hundred a year to attrition. This past year, they’ve hired about fifty. So, we’re outmanned on the street. Something as big as the Olympics would take more than we could handle, unless (Daley) decided to go really really crazy on the hiring, which I don’t see happening. Last year, he cut back on plowing and salting the streets. Every dime he could get was going toward this Olympic dream …
…
This would not have been a good thing. And anybody who says we were being unpatriotic is crazy. The people who live far away – some of the people who wanted it here – it’s easy to want something when it doesn’t cost you anything.
Well done, Officer John – right from the Hog Butcher’s mouth.
From the “Nothing Is Real” and “Manipulation 101” files …
Remember the Office of President-Elect? It was created by Barack Obama for the short-lived pre-Executive branch of government he established prior to his anointment on January 20, 2009. It had a sort-of Easter Bunny meets the Super Friends feel to it. It came out of nowhere - kind of like cohesive English from Joe Biden’s mouth. There was no precedent for it, no Constitutional directive, absolutely nothing that authorized such an invention – save for his ego. Yet, before anyone knew it, the Office of President-Elect had an emblem and official stationary.
Sure, it wasn’t real, but it sounded innovative and fresh – and Obama looked quite presidential reading those cue-cards from behind that cool logo.
Remember when President Obama invoked Winston Churchill while attempting to garner support for his anti-waterboarding position, supposedly quoting the great leader to the effect that “we don’t torture?” It was a pivotal moment for the young Commader-In-Chief.
Of course, Churchill never said anything of the sort, particularly in reference to fighting the Nazis during World War II, but it didn’t keep Bam from saying he did.
After all, if Churchill, a hero to the war-happy right, is against torture …
Churchill did, in fact, comment on how he was opposed to torturing civilian prison inmates, but there is not a word Churchill ever spoke or wrote that came close to suggesting he was against doing whatever was necessary to secure victory during war – including torture (which British interrogators did, thank goodness).
Sure, it wasn’t real, but out-of-context quotes from dead white guys are always effective against close-minded, short-sighted, right wing gun nuts.
Had Obama been anyone else but Obama – and particularly if he were a Republican - the unbiased, always-objective, straight-down-the-middle mainstream media might have actually tapped the President’s brain on these little ditties, as well as a myriad of other messianic manipulations and Obamacratic fairy tales.
It actually took a comedy sketch on Saturday Night Live to get the “drive-by media” to actually do a little work – but not because they attempted to pick apart and dissect Obama and his assertions, as they did regularly with George W. Bush. Rather, they attempted to defend the President, lest they lose their spot in Obama’s bed.
Face it, when CNN takes the time to fact-check an SNL bit highlighting Obama’s ineffectiveness, there’s a whole lot of trouble in River City.
So, what then would the cackling masses have been saying if a Republican President of the United States had gathered a group of professionals together from across the country for a White House photo-op and handed out costumes to help reinforce a policy position?
A fair question, I believe.
On Monday, as has been widely written and talked about, in his ongoing crusade to peddle his health care reform initiatives, i.e. government-run health care, President Obama invited physicians from “all fifty states” to the White House for a pep-rally and photo shoot.
What could be more of a boost to a President trying to keep his socialist health care agenda afloat than to have a small army of supportive contributors – er, professionals – by his side, on the lawn of the People’s House, singing the praises of rationed, aspiring-to-be-mediocre medical care?
Nothing … in theory.
However, as it turned out, some of the doctors who came to the event were not properly attired – not in the way prescribed by their Obamcratic hosts.
You see, this White House Rose Garden event had a motif.
It was to be a White Coat Extravaganza (stethoscope and headgear optional).
Luckily, the White House was more than happy to accommodate the physicians who came in ordinary, every day clothes. (Taxpayer bucks hard at work).
President Obama yesterday rolled out the red carpet — and handed out doctors’ white coats as well, just so nobody missed his hard-sell health-care message.
In a heavy-handed attempt at reviving support for health-care reform, the White House orchestrated a massive photo op to buttress its claim that front-line physicians support Obama.
A sea of 150 white-coated doctors, all enthusiastically supportive of the president and representing all 50 states, looked as if they were at a costume party as they posed in the Rose Garden before hearing Obama’s pitch for the Democratic overhaul bills moving through Congress.
The physicians, all invited guests, were told to bring their white lab coats to make sure that TV cameras captured the image.
But some docs apparently forgot, failing to meet the White House dress code by showing up in business suits or dresses.
So the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.
All this to provide a visual counter to complaints from other doctors that pending legislation is bad news for the medical profession.
“Nobody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do,” Obama told his guests.
Yes, Mr. President.
You’ve hit the nail on the head.
No one has more credibility with the gullible, easily manipulated, visually-hypnotized American people on the issue of health care reform than a small group of Obama supporting doctors who were asked to show up in stereotypical, archaic white lab coats for a cheesy photo op.
Indeed, these are precisely the people I want (and expect to be) endorsing a government-run health care plan – physicians who let the White House dress them up.
Incidentally, do doctors actually wear white lab coats anymore? My doctor comes into the examination room with his Yankees shirt on – which frightens me a bit as a Met fan.
Just think for a moment if George W. Bush (or any Republican), in attempting to sell a military operation to the American people, invited a group of service personnel – both active and retired – to the White House to show support. Then imagine staffers at the Bush White House handing out military uniforms to those who may have shown up in civilian clothes so that TV cameras could “capture the image.”
Think it might have made the news … times ten?
The only question would have been whether or not enough black magic markers were available to the general public for the purposes of drawing black Hitler moustaches on the face of the President; or whether or not there were enough swastikas in all the world to use on all the anti-Republican protest posters that would pop up across the map.
(Perhaps House Speaker Nancy Pelosi best knows the answer to that one).
One day after President Barack Obama’s bid to bring the 2016 Olympic Games homes to the United States failed – and an apoplectic mainstream news media descended into broadcasting pandemonium, coping as best they could with the shock and horror of the President’s embarrassment – CNN political analyst Roland Martin penned an opinion piece, taking “giddy” Republicans to task for basking in the President’s failure.
He effectively challenged the patriotism of those nasty old, mean-spirited, transformation-hating right-wingers who celebrated Chicago’s elimination from contention.
Never one to mince words, let me state, without equivocation – free of any apology or excuse – that I proudly wear the ” giddy” Republican label that Martin is busting a journalistic pimple over.
I’ll tattoo it on my forehead, if necessary.
Admittedly, prior to the announcement that Rio de Janeiro would be the host city for the 2016 Olympics, I was fairly neutral on the whole matter. I actually couldn’t have cared less. I even said so on this blog.
Outside of the nose hair trimming techniques of early 8th Century Persians, I don’t know that there is much that is less interesting to me than the Olympics.
However, since the announcement last Friday – and witnessing the reaction of the Obama-backed media complex since – I have shifted my thinking.
Whenever President Obama has traveled overseas and offered pointed and direct assessments of the United States, some of them critical, Republicans have ripped him for criticizing America, saying a president should always defend the United States.
So I want to hear the explanation by these so-called patriots of their giddy behavior over the United States losing the 2016 Olympic Games.
Yes, the United States. The bid that was rejected Friday by the International Olympic Committee was not a Chicago, Illinois, bid. It was the official bid submitted by the United States Olympic Committee and was representative of the nation. Tokyo’s bid was that of Japan; Madrid’s was that of Spain; and Rio de Janeiro’s was that of Brazil.
Republicans want to spin the decision as a massive loss by President Obama and the Democrats who have always controlled Chicago politics.
“Hahahahaha,” wrote Erick Erickson on the conservative “RedState” blog, “I thought the world would love us more now that Bush was gone.”
What the critics don’t see is that Obama’s loss on the Olympics is America’s loss. Any red-blooded American who loves to see the American flag raised and the national anthem played when one of our own wins a gold medal should blast the Republicans’ giddiness over the loss.
First of all, for clarity’s sake, no President of the United States has ever criticized or apologized for his own country on foreign soil. It is inconceivable that any President would ever do so. It simply would never serve the best interests of the United States, in any way whatsoever – yet, President Obama has done it on several occasions. In no uncertain terms, it is unaccepatble behavior for the Commander-In-Chief of the United States of America. It is not how a President preserves, protects and defends the Constitution.
That he – President Obama – finds it appropriate to do so, with mere months under his belt as the nation’s Chief Executive, while effectively thumbing his nose at the over two centuries of American history that preceded him, is, at the very least, arrogant; it is, at most, a dangerous precedent that isolates and instills less confidence and security in those nations that look to America as the world’s defender against evil (think of Poland and the Czech Republic). It is a weakness that emboldens America’s enemies.
This criticism of President Obama would apply to any President who asserts that kind of spinelessness, regardless of his party affiliation, skin color, or city of origin.
As far as the “red-blooded” Americans Martin is referring to whom he says should be blasting “giddy” Republicans like me, I must ask:
How exactly is not getting the Olympic Games “America’s loss?” In what way?
It seems that Mr. Martin is somehow equating patriotism with support of the games coming to Chicago.
Typical liberal non sequiturism.
I’m an American – a proud American – and whenever that flag goes up (when possible), regardless of where I am, whether there are Olympic Games going on or not, I stand and salute it. Likewise, wherever and whenever I hear Star-Spangled Banner, I take a moment (when possible) to stop and honor my country. Whether it is played in Rio, Chicago, Europe, or on the moon, the significance is not – nor should it be – diminished based on locale.
It’s true, I am not a fan of the Olympics. But so what? Patriotism has nothing to do with the Olympic Games.
For what it’s worth, before each sporting event I attend, I remove my hat, face the flag, and salute my country. I fly flags proudly at my home, and handle them properly, removing them at night and during inclement weather. I proudly wear a flag lapel pin because I honor this nation and those who fight to defend her. I don’t need an international athletic competition held on American soil to serve as a barometer of how patriotic I am, or whether or not I support the United States of America.
Besides, there are plenty of people who fervently support our Olympic athletes who would rather see the games played elsewhere. Let someone else deal with the nightmarish traffic, pollution, community upheaval, and ever-present terrorist threats that accompany the event.
And just to keep my friends in the environmentalist movement happy, what about the massive carbon footprint that human beings from well over a hundred countries would leave behind?
Having recycling bins strewn about the Olympic Village just isn’t green enough.
Martin continues:
Americans love home field advantage, and we always desire to show the rest of the world what we are made of.
I don’t care if Republicans want to rip President Obama over going to Copenhagen, Denmark, to pitch for the games. This isn’t about politics. It’s not about ideology. This is about America. OUR pride. Our chance to shine. Our loss of the games.
So, to all the critics happy about us losing the 2016 games, turn in your flag lapel pins and stop boasting of being so patriotic. When an American city loses, like New York did in the the last go-round, we all lose. And all you critics are on the same level as the America haters all across the world.
You should be shouted down for not backing your own country. The next time any of you bang out a press release about “Buy American” or “Support our troops,” remember this moment when your cynical, callous and small-minded brains happily rejoiced when America lost the 2016 Olympic Games.
Mr. Martin, Americans show the world what we are made of by our values. We show the world what we are made of by standing up to evil and defeating it. We are the Shining City Upon The Hill because we are a nation that believes in God-given liberty and the power of the individual. We stand as a beacon to the world’s huddled masses not because we have the longest jumpers, fastest runners and strongest weightlifters. We are the greatest nation on Earth because America gives anyone and everyone the opportunity to be the very best they can be, without government restraint.
That’s how America’s greatness is measured.
People come here not because we have killer sprinters and world class pole vaulters.
It’s interesting how Mr. Martin can make the claim that this was not about politics.
Why on Earth would President Obama personally jet to Copenhagen to pitch his adopted home city if there was not political pressure to do so from his cronies back home? I mean, why Chicago? Why not other American cities that could probably have been more accomodating than the splendidly corruptible Windy City?
Because everything is about the ever-enigmatic, charismatic, President of the World, Barack Obama.
He is the Liberal King. He can do anything.
I also love how Mr. Martin says that the bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago was “about America.”
Does he have any inclination of how ridiculous he sounds?
The Olympics are not about America. They’re about multiculturalism. They’re about leveling the playing fields between nations. They’re about moral and cultural equivelancy. They’re about the whole world coming together in some sort of pseudo-hand holding, kumbaya-type of kinship manifested through athletic competition.
“America,” Mr. Martin?
How about the troops in harm’s way? Why the hell has the President dragged his feet on Afghanistan while American fighting forces literally hang in the balance waiting for him to decide what he is going to do? How good is it for America that, at one minute, Afghanistan is a war of necessity and at the next, it is an issue he is unsure about? Aren’t the men and women of the Armed Forces “about America?” Do they not deserve the President’s attention before he makes himself available to the damn International Olympic Committee?
American pride is not about where the Olympic Games are being held.
Sure, one can make a case that America is about winning in those games. I’ve nothing against that. When America wins – even in the Olympics – it is a good thing.
But the locale of those games is all “about America?”
Who’s brain is “small-minded,” sir?
America shines when she liberates oppressed peoples. America shines when she defends her allies and keeps her promises. America shines when she come to the aid of people in trouble, in all walks of life, all over the world. America shines not because her athletes throw a jevelin the longest, or swim the fastest. America shines because she is a shining city upon a hill, as accommodating as any nation that has ever existed.
And by the way, as a New Yorker, I did not lose when my city was rejected as the host of the 2012 Olympic Games, nor did my family, friends and fellow New Yorkers.
I actually celebrated.
And keep in mind, that was while George W. Bush was President, not too long after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The fact of the matter is, the Olympics are not good for local economies. The 2016 Games, if the pattern had held true to form, would not have been a boost to Chicago, as many instinctively (and reflexively) believe. Since the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, every host city has actually lost money.
The truth is that the local economy doesn’t get much of a boost while those shiny new athletic venues are being built. Many of the jobs created are filled by specialists who come in from outside — to construct a BMX bicycle track, it helps to have built one before — and they take their pay home with them. To the extent that local labor is tapped, suppliers are taken away from other projects in the area, raising costs in the process. It would be nice to think you could create an Olympic city by hiring an army of the unemployed, but mega-projects like this do not work like that.
My charm will conquer all
President Obama’s grandest mistake in this whole affair was never giving anyone the impression that he wanted the Olympic Games to come to Chicago because it was good for the United States of America. Nothing in what he said or did surrounding his attempt to bring the games to Chicago was ever about his country.
It was always about him.
And whether justified or not, the impression that he was paying back some old debts to former Chicagoland chums was foremost in the minds of many.
It was his arrogance – the continuation of his United Nations “America-Has-Been-Great-For-Nine-Months-Since-I-Came-Along” approach – that killed Chicago’s chances. It was his belief in his own power to persuade, simply by virtue of his unprecedented presence before the OIC in Copenhagen that killed the bid. It was his self-centered, rambling, unfocused gobbledygook about how the Games would feel to him and his family that deep-sixed it. It was his wife, Michelle, emoting about how the games would make her feel, and how it would remind her of her father thathelped knock Chicago out in the first round.
For those reasons, President Obama needed to be brought down a few pegs.
This country is not about him.
With each failure of his radical agendas and misprioritized deeds, America wins.
As readers of my blog know, the weekends are not a busy time for me here. Indeed, if there is big news to talk about, or if something is particularly gnawing at me, I will certainly make it a point to sit down and post something. But as a rule, weekends are quiet at Roman Around. Of course, being the only contributor to this blog, and having a fairly busy life, there are going to be periods when I simply don’t post as much as I would like.
So be it.
Today, however, is a fairly lazy day. There isn’t much going on. And while I am very much looking forward to watching the New York Jets’ take on the New Orleans Saints in less than a half-hour, I can’t help but get that annoying feeling that I need to sit down and post something – anything.
So, here it is.
From the “Save Yourself The Trouble” file …
One of my “Andy’s General Rules of Life in America” rules – something I’ve written about fairly often – has to do with world opinion. Generally speaking, whatever world opinion is on any given subject, take the opposite position.
Another is … There is no crisis contrived by liberals that has ever proven to be so; therfore relax, the world is not coming to an end. Do your homework, keep your head, and allow the hysteria pass you by.
It will.
Here’s another to add to the list.
As a general rule, whenever you hear a political ad that specifically touts the fact that the candidate in question is one who either wants more money for education, or one who has, in the past, secured more funding for education, vote for the other.
He or she is a liberal.
It isn’t even necessary to hear the entire ad.
Let’s say you turned on the radio or television and joined the commercial in-progress.
If you hear something akin to, “Joe Blow wants to help our under-funded schools,” or “More money for education is Joe Blow’s top priority,” then roll down the windows, lock the doors and close the garage.
It’s liberal time.
In the instance where both candidates in the race (assuming there are two) have commercials that are pushing their candidates’ desire to invest even more money in education, understand that there is no conservative in the running.
Was anyone able to catch the chicken that laid the egg that is now dripping from the face of President Barack Obama?
Not only did the city of Chicago, Illinois not get the nod to host the 2016 Olympic Games, it was eliminated in the first round.
The first round.
It wasn’t even close.
I would have bet almost anything that Chicago’s chances of getting the games were all but assured. After all, why would the President of the United States make the trek all the way to Europe if there was a realistic shot at coming home empty-handed?
Miscalculation? Arrogance? Messiah-complex? Better waffles in Denmark?
Ouch.
Perhaps he should have walked across the big pond to Copenhagen rather than fly (and consequently burn through all of those carbon credits). He might have fared better with the greenies on the Olympic committee.
Incidentally, The Drudge Report had what was clearly the headline of the week in announcing the news: The Ego Has Landed.
If you don’t find that funny, your pulse is out of town … or a Democrat.
Anyway, when the news came down that Chicago did not make the cut, local Chicagoland newscasters were in shock. They couldn’t believe Obama had failed to bring home the gold, so to speak. Hearts fell. Disbelief swept across newsrooms and community organizing centers all over the metropolitan area. (We’ll see if racism is eventually blamed).
As an example, here’s how the news of the Windy City’s axing was covered live on WGN.
(Note the disbelief and shock in the voices of the WGN newscasters.)
-“Did we hear that right?”
-“Pandemonium here in the broadcast center…”
-“You heard it. It was difficult and shocking.”
-“It flies in the face of every prediction we heard.”
A HUGE tip of the hat to the indispensible Breitbart.tv website.
__________________________________________
Update – October 2, 2009 – 1:08 PM
Rio will host the 2016 Olympic Games.
Congratulations.
__________________________________________
Update – October 2, 2009 – 3:22 PM
During the first segment of Michael Medved’s radio program this afternoon, he played audio from CNN’s coverage of Chicago’s elimination from contention.
-”Chicago is out?! Chicago is out?! … Madrid is still in?! Tokyo is still in?!”
-”An unbelievacble development that we have just witnessed here in Copenhagen. No one expected this development, and an audible gasp went up in this building …”
You’d have thought the President was shot.
Here’s the video:
Meanwhile, on MSNBC, one anchor called it a “stunning blow to Chicago.”
If you happen to be traveling along Interstate 70 in Missouri, and you find yourself between the Adams Dairy Parkway and the Grain Valley exits, don’t forget to look up. This billboard just might grab your attention:
People said they might not agree with the sentiment of the sign, but they felt it was a matter of free speech. Others that KCTV5 talked to said it is offensive and should come down.
A pastor who drives by the sign during his daily commute to his church said he lived in England for years and he agreed with the message.
“We lived in a socialist society and I guess what I am seeing in America is that we are pushing to some of those ways now,” he said. “Especially the hospitalization. It’s taken away some of our freedoms as Americans.”
KCTV5 could not reach the owner of the billboard. The mayor of Blue Springs said his office has gotten calls and e-mails about the sign.
Thanks to the Drudge Report for bringing this to my attention.
For the first time, the only video footage known to exist of Anne Frank, whose diary became an international symbol for the Holocaust when it was published in 1947, has been released publicly.
She appears for only five seconds.
Indeed, the footage is not new. It has been seen and used in limited circumstances before. However, for those who have not seen it, it is certainly worth a look.
The haunting black-and-white images show the then 12-year-old schoolgirl leaning out a window in her home city of Amsterdam at the height of World War II in July 1941.
Despite clearly smiling, she looks vulnerable and alone as she stares out on to the busy street.
Soon afterwards Nazi persecution of Jews meant she and her family had to go into hiding, before she was finally captured and sent to a concentration camp where she died aged 15.
…
The Anne Frank House, a museum dedicated to her legacy, was in possession of the film – but previously it was only accessible to those visiting the museum or watching documentaries that contained the footage.
Personally, I find it difficult to tell exactly what sort of expression she has on her face, or if any sort of vulnerability can truly be detected. The distance, graininess and brevity of her appearance on film, to me, is inconclusive.
Congressman Joe Wilson blurted out the infamous words, “You lie!” during President Obama’s address before a joint session of Congress not too long ago. Because of it, for a time, Wilson was ranked – along with typhoid and severe intestinal cramps – on the list of most hated things in American life.
After all, he had the nerve to speak out against the Messiah-In-Chief. It probably had to do with his distaste in having a black man in the White House, blah, blah …
(Columnist Maureen Dowd actually heard Wilson use the word “boy” – in her mind.)
The fact is, it was an emotional outburst that was wholly inappropriate, and he immediately apologized for it.
Yet, he was raked over the coals.
What Wilson was reacting to was the assertion by the President that illegal aliens would not be covered under ObamaCare.
One thing President Obama neglected during his speech, however, was the pesky little fact that anyone seeking health care would not – repeat would not - be required to prove their legal right to be in this country. That simple truth effectively made the President’s contention untrue.
Wilson knew this.
Indeed, he may have been wrong in what he did, but he was substantively correct.
Compare and contrast that situation to that of Florida Congressman Alan Grayson, who helped to reaffirm that first-class bone-headedness is not only a spontaneous phenomenon, but it can be premeditated and well-scripted.
From the House Floor, in a prepared presentation, complete with visual aids, Grayson contended that the Republican’s idea of health care reform consists of an easy-to-follow plan: Don’tGet sick. But if you do, die quickly.
It was almost certainly a big hit among those who live on the hard left – which really means mainstream liberalism.
Die quickly.
Does it get any cleverer that that?
It’s catchy; and true to form, it fits nicely on a bumper sticker. It can even be squeezed onto a liberal talking points sheet without having to kill additional trees.
Keep in mind, this exercise in cerebral vapidity was no emotional outburst like Wilson’s. This was a contrived and calculated speech.
He went on to say, “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”
Yes, he really said that.
A Holocaust in America. (I’ll get to that in a moment).
Let’s think about his first point - his interpretation of the Republican Health Care Plan. According to Grayson, Republicans – who simply do not want the finest health care delivery system in the world to be transformed into one of government-run rationed mediocrity – not only want people to get sick quickly (if they must), they wish to see them die as soon as conceivably possible afterward.
In other words, as a conservative (and also a registered Republican) I am one of those who want people to get sick and drop dead post haste. So does my wife, apparently. And my kids. Mom, too.
We all want people to become ill and die quickly.
It sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it?
Remember, to Grayson and his comrades, conservatives aren’t just on the other side of the debate. They don’t just have an opposing view from theirs. They are bad. They have ulterior motives. They are sinister. They want people to die.
This is the depth of liberal thought in modern America.
This is why libs should never be in charge of things that require adult thinking.
Now, onto Grayson’s second point – a Holocaust in America.
I’m willing to wager a vital body appendage that most of you had no idea that there was a bona fide, honest-to-goodness Holocaust ongoing in the United States of America today.
I didn’t.
Mr. Grayson, you DOPE, THIS is the human atrocity that was The Holocaust.
Does Mr. Grayson understand what the Holocaust actually was? Does he have any conception of the unspeakable horrors that are associated with the Holocaust? Does he not understand how he cheapens the atrocities that took place during the Holocaust with his mindless, childish, asinine show-and-tell speech about the supposed health care “crisis” in this country ? Has he no respect for the millions and millions of murdered innocents, their families, and survivors of the death camps?
How ironic it is that liberals, the ones who are constantly pushing to make sure no one in any segment of the population – save for conservative white males – are ever offended for any reason whatsoever, are conspicuously silent here. Grayson – a liberal’s liberal if ever such a thing existed – has drawn from the blob of intellectual excrement that lives between his ears to compare the uninsured status of a very small percentage of Americans to the brutality and horror that was the Holocaust – and no one on that side of the aisle seems to be bothered too much. Does Grayson believe that there is a single Holocaust survivor who will say, “Right you are, Mr. Grayson. It feels like Nazi Germany around here!”
Disgusting.
In Grayson’s mind, the uninsured of America are comperable to the slaughtered Jews of the Holocaust.
On his radio program today, talk show host Dennis Prager wondered where the Anti-Defamation league was on this issue? After all, making light of the Holocaust is one of things the ADL is most vocal about.
Grayson is a liberal, however. Perhaps different rules apply.
As Prager said, “He owes history an apology. He owes moral clarity an apology.”
What is it with lefties who reflexively pull out the Hitler card when they’re on the ropes or lack the substance to defend their arguments?
If America had a dollar for every swastika that had been used as a substitute for the letter “s” on anti-Bush protest signs, everyone in the country would have their health care paid for two-fold with enough left over for a pack of Manhattan-bought cigarettes.
Meanwhile, like the media assault on Congressman Joe Wilson a couple of weeks ago, I’ll patiently wait on the outrage against Alan Grayson to bubble up.
Singed strands of Michael Jackson’s hair that were burned in a Pepsi advert are coming up for sale.
“GIDDY” REPUBLICAN HERE!
Posted by Andrew Roman on October 5, 2009
CNN Political Analyst, Roland Martin
One day after President Barack Obama’s bid to bring the 2016 Olympic Games homes to the United States failed – and an apoplectic mainstream news media descended into broadcasting pandemonium, coping as best they could with the shock and horror of the President’s embarrassment – CNN political analyst Roland Martin penned an opinion piece, taking “giddy” Republicans to task for basking in the President’s failure.
He effectively challenged the patriotism of those nasty old, mean-spirited, transformation-hating right-wingers who celebrated Chicago’s elimination from contention.
Never one to mince words, let me state, without equivocation – free of any apology or excuse – that I proudly wear the ” giddy” Republican label that Martin is busting a journalistic pimple over.
I’ll tattoo it on my forehead, if necessary.
Admittedly, prior to the announcement that Rio de Janeiro would be the host city for the 2016 Olympics, I was fairly neutral on the whole matter. I actually couldn’t have cared less. I even said so on this blog.
Outside of the nose hair trimming techniques of early 8th Century Persians, I don’t know that there is much that is less interesting to me than the Olympics.
However, since the announcement last Friday – and witnessing the reaction of the Obama-backed media complex since – I have shifted my thinking.
I will use Martin’s piece to help me explain why.
Martin wrote:
First of all, for clarity’s sake, no President of the United States has ever criticized or apologized for his own country on foreign soil. It is inconceivable that any President would ever do so. It simply would never serve the best interests of the United States, in any way whatsoever – yet, President Obama has done it on several occasions. In no uncertain terms, it is unaccepatble behavior for the Commander-In-Chief of the United States of America. It is not how a President preserves, protects and defends the Constitution.
That he – President Obama – finds it appropriate to do so, with mere months under his belt as the nation’s Chief Executive, while effectively thumbing his nose at the over two centuries of American history that preceded him, is, at the very least, arrogant; it is, at most, a dangerous precedent that isolates and instills less confidence and security in those nations that look to America as the world’s defender against evil (think of Poland and the Czech Republic). It is a weakness that emboldens America’s enemies.
This criticism of President Obama would apply to any President who asserts that kind of spinelessness, regardless of his party affiliation, skin color, or city of origin.
As far as the “red-blooded” Americans Martin is referring to whom he says should be blasting “giddy” Republicans like me, I must ask:
How exactly is not getting the Olympic Games “America’s loss?” In what way?
It seems that Mr. Martin is somehow equating patriotism with support of the games coming to Chicago.
Typical liberal non sequiturism.
It’s true, I am not a fan of the Olympics. But so what? Patriotism has nothing to do with the Olympic Games.
For what it’s worth, before each sporting event I attend, I remove my hat, face the flag, and salute my country. I fly flags proudly at my home, and handle them properly, removing them at night and during inclement weather. I proudly wear a flag lapel pin because I honor this nation and those who fight to defend her. I don’t need an international athletic competition held on American soil to serve as a barometer of how patriotic I am, or whether or not I support the United States of America.
Besides, there are plenty of people who fervently support our Olympic athletes who would rather see the games played elsewhere. Let someone else deal with the nightmarish traffic, pollution, community upheaval, and ever-present terrorist threats that accompany the event.
And just to keep my friends in the environmentalist movement happy, what about the massive carbon footprint that human beings from well over a hundred countries would leave behind?
Having recycling bins strewn about the Olympic Village just isn’t green enough.
Martin continues:
Mr. Martin, Americans show the world what we are made of by our values. We show the world what we are made of by standing up to evil and defeating it. We are the Shining City Upon The Hill because we are a nation that believes in God-given liberty and the power of the individual. We stand as a beacon to the world’s huddled masses not because we have the longest jumpers, fastest runners and strongest weightlifters. We are the greatest nation on Earth because America gives anyone and everyone the opportunity to be the very best they can be, without government restraint.
That’s how America’s greatness is measured.
People come here not because we have killer sprinters and world class pole vaulters.
It’s interesting how Mr. Martin can make the claim that this was not about politics.
Why on Earth would President Obama personally jet to Copenhagen to pitch his adopted home city if there was not political pressure to do so from his cronies back home? I mean, why Chicago? Why not other American cities that could probably have been more accomodating than the splendidly corruptible Windy City?
Because everything is about the ever-enigmatic, charismatic, President of the World, Barack Obama.
He is the Liberal King. He can do anything.
I also love how Mr. Martin says that the bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago was “about America.”
Does he have any inclination of how ridiculous he sounds?
The Olympics are not about America. They’re about multiculturalism. They’re about leveling the playing fields between nations. They’re about moral and cultural equivelancy. They’re about the whole world coming together in some sort of pseudo-hand holding, kumbaya-type of kinship manifested through athletic competition.
“America,” Mr. Martin?
How about the troops in harm’s way? Why the hell has the President dragged his feet on Afghanistan while American fighting forces literally hang in the balance waiting for him to decide what he is going to do? How good is it for America that, at one minute, Afghanistan is a war of necessity and at the next, it is an issue he is unsure about? Aren’t the men and women of the Armed Forces “about America?” Do they not deserve the President’s attention before he makes himself available to the damn International Olympic Committee?
American pride is not about where the Olympic Games are being held.
Sure, one can make a case that America is about winning in those games. I’ve nothing against that. When America wins – even in the Olympics – it is a good thing.
But the locale of those games is all “about America?”
Who’s brain is “small-minded,” sir?
America shines when she liberates oppressed peoples. America shines when she defends her allies and keeps her promises. America shines when she come to the aid of people in trouble, in all walks of life, all over the world. America shines not because her athletes throw a jevelin the longest, or swim the fastest. America shines because she is a shining city upon a hill, as accommodating as any nation that has ever existed.
And by the way, as a New Yorker, I did not lose when my city was rejected as the host of the 2012 Olympic Games, nor did my family, friends and fellow New Yorkers.
I actually celebrated.
And keep in mind, that was while George W. Bush was President, not too long after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The fact of the matter is, the Olympics are not good for local economies. The 2016 Games, if the pattern had held true to form, would not have been a boost to Chicago, as many instinctively (and reflexively) believe. Since the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, every host city has actually lost money.
Stefan Szymanski of the Washington Post writes:
My charm will conquer all
President Obama’s grandest mistake in this whole affair was never giving anyone the impression that he wanted the Olympic Games to come to Chicago because it was good for the United States of America. Nothing in what he said or did surrounding his attempt to bring the games to Chicago was ever about his country.
It was always about him.
And whether justified or not, the impression that he was paying back some old debts to former Chicagoland chums was foremost in the minds of many.
It was his arrogance – the continuation of his United Nations “America-Has-Been-Great-For-Nine-Months-Since-I-Came-Along” approach – that killed Chicago’s chances. It was his belief in his own power to persuade, simply by virtue of his unprecedented presence before the OIC in Copenhagen that killed the bid. It was his self-centered, rambling, unfocused gobbledygook about how the Games would feel to him and his family that deep-sixed it. It was his wife, Michelle, emoting about how the games would make her feel, and how it would remind her of her father that helped knock Chicago out in the first round.
For those reasons, President Obama needed to be brought down a few pegs.
This country is not about him.
With each failure of his radical agendas and misprioritized deeds, America wins.
That is why I am “giddy,” Mr. Martin.
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Posted in Foreign Policy, Media Bias, Obama Bonehead, politics, Sports, Values | Tagged: "giddy" Republicans, 2016 Olympics, Chicago Olympics, CNN Commentary, President Obama failure, Roland Martin | Leave a Comment »