Tom McMahon

Homosexuality, Freedom: Pick One

Where Antidiscrimination Laws Take You by Clayton Cramer:

I mentioned a while back that a photographer who refused an assignment to photograph a same-sex civil commitment ceremony was being sued before the New Mexico Human Rights Commission for discriminating against homosexuals. The photographer has now been ordered to pay costs of $6637.94. Professor Volokh discusses the issues involved, and predictably, lawyers and law students are piling on, most of them defending why this is a good thing.

Homosexuality, freedom: pick one.

This is why State Senator Corder's bill prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation is so dangerous--it creates all sorts of opportunities like this.

Where's Willy?: The Redesigned Logo of the Nordic Battlegroup

Where's Willy?: The Redesigned Logo of the Nordic Battlegroup

Redesigned because a group of female Swedish soldiers filed a sex discrimination complaint with the European Court of Justice.

Wife Beater's License

Wife Beater's License

From Doug Pappas' Roadsidephotos:

From the 1940s through the 1960s, every tourist trap had a rack of postcards. Every postcard rack displayed views of the local attractions and a selection of comic cards. Some of those comic cards seem to have come from another world.

In the world of comic postcards, all women start as man-crazy airheads, then become either stern, overweight battle-axe wives or desperate "old maids." Southerners are hillbillies with outhouses and moonshine stills; after their annual bath, they mate with their kinfolk. African-Americans are shuffling, bug-eyed, thick-lipped caricatures. Someone could write a dissertation, or at least a master's thesis, about the audience to which these cards were marketed.

But not me. I'll just present a sample of the way women, Southerners and blacks were depicted in comic postcards. (I know many of these images are offensive. That's why they're here.) I've also assembled a few military postcards from World War II, and some British comic postcards with a different sensibility. Enjoy!

The Truth About High Point Church and the Funeral of the Gay Gulf War Veteran

Excerpts from Paul Edwards:

The mainstream media wants you to believe that a conservative evangelical church deep in the Bible belt has refused to bury a Gulf War veteran because he was gay. Some in the Christian media want you to believe that the church hasn’t shown the love of Jesus to a dead man’s family. Neither is anywhere near the truth.

Here are the facts. High Point Church, a non-denominational church in Arlington, Texas, had been praying for Cecil Sinclair after Cecil’s brother, Lee (the only member of the Sinclair family who was a member of the church) requested prayer for his brother who had been awaiting a heart transplant. When Cecil Sinclair’s health became critical last week, the family called a staff member from the church to be with them at the hospital. In the hospital, in the moments immediately following Mr. Sinclair’s death, the family asked the staff member if the church would be open to holding a memorial service for their loved one. The staff member assured them the church would be available to help the family in any way appropriate, a response any pastor would give in that situation.

Cecil Sinclair was not a member of High Point Church, yet this church selflessly and sacrificially ministered to his family in the wake of his death, preparing and delivering food for the family and one hundred relatives and friends, along with many other expressions of kindness. The church offered to produce a video retrospective of Mr. Sinclair’s life for use during the memorial service. When the family provided the pictures to the church it was then that the church learned of their intention to make the memorial service a celebration of Cecil Sinclair’s gay lifestyle. One of the photos provided by the family “showed a man with his hand touching another man’s genitalia,” along with other inappropriate photos, according to a statement on the High Point Church website.

The family also requested that “an associate of an openly homosexual choir” officiate at the service and that the homosexual choir sing during the service. “It became clear to the church staff that the family was requesting an openly homosexual service at High Point Church - which is not our policy to allow,” the statement on the church’s website said. After initially agreeing to host the memorial service, the church informed the family it could not do so based on the direction they were taking service. The church then secured - and paid for - another location for the memorial service, which the family declined. The church also produced the memorial video without the inappropriate photos.

High Point Church did not refuse to host the funeral of a gay man, as is being widely reported in the mainstream media. The church refused on biblical principle to allow a celebration of the homosexual lifestyle in its sanctuary, a decision most theologically sound churches would make under similar circumstances. ...

The church did not refuse to host the memorial service because Cecil Sinclair was gay. They refused to host the memorial service because the family was turning it into a celebration of the man’s sin - his homosexual lifestyle. Churches and ministers bury sinners every day. But we don’t highlight their sin on the big screen while we are doing it. We exalt Christ. We proclaim the gospel. And we celebrate the triumph of the cross over sin and death, none of which the family had in mind for Cecil Sinclair’s memorial service.

Multicultural Futures: Cultural Diversity and the Desire of Belonging

Multicultural Futures: Cultural Diversity and the Desire of Belonging

Excerpts from the Keynote address presented to the Austrian Association for American Studies annual conference, Salzburg, November 2004, by Deborah L. Madsen, University of Geneva:

The Miss Universe beauty pageant, screed by NBC in June this year, featured a special award for “the delegate who displayed her country's pride and spirit best in costume.” Miss USA, Shandi Finnessey, appeared wearing a body-length war-bonnet style costume. She also wore straps studded with circular metal medallions – and very little else.

The imitation headdress was perceived as an insult by Native American tribal groups; Tex Hall, the President of the National Congress of American Indians, condemned the costume and demanded an apology of NBC and Donald Trump who owns the pageant. Hall was particularly offended that a woman should be seen wearing a war-bonnet which is reserved only for men.

The controversy focuses then upon the question of who has the right to wear “authentic” costumes. A photograph of the Women's War Bonnet Society quickly circulated to contradict Tex Hall's claim that this headdress is only for men though the counter-claim was also quickly made that these women photographed here belong to tribes that traditionally use the war-bonnet. To the objection that Miss Oklahoma 1940, Martyne Woods, wore a war-bonnet as part of her traditional costume came the response that she belonged to the eastern woodland Choctaw tribe and so is also “inauthentic.” The struggle to identify “authentic” people who might qualify to wear this “authentic” costume places in question just what it is that the costume is doing in this representation of identity. What is being “recognized” here? In one of the official photographs of Miss USA, it is significant that the image of her disembodied face appears projected against the US flag. She is shown in three-quarter profile, with her blonde hair cascading down to her shoulders. Here she is the all-American girl, identified by her bodily characteristics with the “Political” nation. But she is also is the same woman who wears faux Native American regalia. She is performing a kind of cultural authenticity that relates to the “Political” nation rather than to her bodily ethnic identification. She chooses Native America in the way that Gish Jen's Mona chooses Judaism – and by choosing they demonstrate their “Americanness.”

This pluralism, which is more a kind of performativity, can be seen also in the photograph of Cher, which features on the cover of her 1973 album Half-Breed. I use the word “performative” because the knowing choice of ethnic identification (as opposed to the unearthing of some core of personal identity), the voluntary act of adhesion, requires action – the performance of that identification.

Cher's performance differs from Miss USA's in that she is identifying with her “Americanness” in relation to a negative life-script: “ We weren’t accepted and I felt ashamed / Nineteen I left them, tell me who’s to blame / My life since then has been from man to man / But I can’t run away from what I am.” Now, we can simply see Cher’s Native costuming as a cynical marketing strategy but even in such terms it is curious to find this identification with a negative life-script, with an image that represents absence: the inability to belong or to discover one's “Americanness.” This makes the example interesting to me. It seems to point to the fact that not only the indigenous or ethnic American experiences hybrid subjectivity. Cher as Cherilyn and Cher as the anonymous Cherokee half-breed each alike represents the dynamic of belonging and not-belonging characteristic of American cultural identity.

Gives you a better appreciation for diversity and multiculturalism, eh?

WordWeb: Freeware, Except For SUV Owners

WordWeb: Freeware, Except For SUV Owners

It's a nice piece of software nonetheless.

What Happened In Blacksburg

Excerpts from Pat Buchanan:

What happened in Blacksburg cannot be divorced from what's been happening to America since the immigration act brought tens of millions of strangers to these shores, even as the old bonds of national community began to disintegrate and dissolve in the social revolutions of the 1960s. ...

Since the 1960s, we have become alienated from one another even as millions of strangers arrive every year. And as Americans no longer share the old ties of history, heritage, faith, language, tradition, culture, music, myth or morality, how can immigrants share those ties?

Many immigrants do not assimilate. Many do not wish to. They seek community in their separate subdivisions of our multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual mammoth mall of a nation. And in numbers higher than our native born, some are going berserk here.

Some berserk immigrants include:

• The 1993 bombers of the World Trade Center
• The 9/11 terrorists
• Colin Ferguson, the Jamaican who went on an anti-white shooting spree on the Long Island Railroad. 6 dead, 19 wounded.
• John Lee Malvo, the Beltway Sniper
• Julio Gonzalez, who burned down the Happy Land social club in New York. 87 dead.
• Ali Hassan Abu Kama, who went on a rampage on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. 1 dead, 7 wounded.
• Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy
• The rifleman who murdered two CIA employees at the McLean, Va., headquarters
• Chai Vang, who shot 6 Wisconsin hunters to death
• Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, the UNC graduate who ran his SUV over nine people
• Juan Corona, who murdered 25 people in California

Seems like we could use a little better screening process, eh?

Watching The Milwaukee Brewer Game At Miller Park: Ever Since The PC Police Stole His Beer Stein Bernie Brewer Looks Like An Idiot On That Stupid Yellow Slide

Bernie Brewer At Miller Park

From James Widgerson:

My six-year-old: Why is there a yellow slide?
Me: When the Milwaukee Brewers hit a home run, Bernie Brewer goes down the slide.
SYO: How does he get up there?
Me: There's a big ladder.
SYO: Why does he go down the slide?
Me: Well, that's kind of an existential question.

At the old Milwaukee County Stadium, well, Life Was Simpler then:

Bernie Brewer At The Old Milwaukee County Stadium

Milwaukee was famous for beer, the team name was the Brewers, the mascot was Bernie Brewer, so when a Brewer hit a a home run then Bernie would slide down into a big stein of beer. Easy to understand, even for a six year old. And best of all, you didn't need to use the word "existential" at a baseball game.

The Classic Response To Multiculturalism

From General Sir Charles James Napier, a British general and Commander-in-Chief in India back in the days of the British Empire:

A quote for which Napier is famous involves a delegation of Hindu locals approaching him and complaining about prohibition of Sati, often referred to at the time as suttee, by British authorities. This was the custom of burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. The exact wording of his response varies somewhat in different reports, but the following version captures its essence:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Homosexual Debauchery

Now there's a title for a post, eh? This week was the first time I ever heard those two words together on TV. It was on a History Channel special on the Night Of The Long Knives, when Hitler purged all the leaders of the SA.

Actually, I don't hear the word "debauchery" all by itself much on TV either. It's one of those fun words we don't use often enough, eh?

Silencing Charlie Chan

Silencing Charlie Chan

Excerpts from Leonard Maltin:

That’s why I’m so annoyed by Fox Movie Channel’s decision to cancel its Charlie Chan film festival this summer, after an Asian-American organization stirred up this ancient hornet’s nest. They don’t like the fact that Charlie Chan was played by Caucasians.  Fair enough, but what do we accomplish by taking those movies out of circulation?  Do we convince young Asian-Americans that such casting never existed?  Moreover, does anyone gain anything by wiping this piece of movie (and social) history off the map?  Why should we obliterate the good work of such Asian-American actors as Keye Luke and Victor Sen Yung, who played Charlie’s sons so well?

Instead of pretending these movies never existed, they should serve as a springboard for intelligent discussion about racial stereotyping and Hollywood casting. ... we should all attempt to learn from the past, in order to improve ourselves. As Cicero said, “Not to know what happened before you were born is to forever remain a child.”

As a movie buff, I feel especially sad.  I’ve loved the Charlie Chan movies since I was a kid; they’re enormously entertaining.  And unlike many other ethnic groups who have a valid complaint about their portrayal in films gone by, Asian Americans have in Chan a genuine hero—a warm, wise, witty crime-solver and behavioral psychologist who is invariably smarter than any white man in the movie.  If this is racial slander, I must confess that I just don’t see it. But for now, he has been silenced.  With him goes a chunk of Hollywood history, a prime piece of popular culture, and an opportunity to learn and grow.

AIDS Sufferers Forgotten?

An excerpt from Hilary White:

Huge profits for pharmaceutical and condom manufacturers, bottomless grants for researchers and NGO’s, publicity and money for research foundations, six-digit salaries for advertising executives and increasing fame for big name celebrities are creating a disincentive to actually stop the disease say some AIDS activists.

The “AIDS industry,” is a multi-billion dollar international enterprise now, and those who gather to enjoy lavish meals and hotels in Toronto this week, are more interested in “managing the disease” than in curing it or stopping its spread, says Martin Sempa, a leading AIDS fighter from Uganda.

Sempa, who has struggled against HIV/AIDS in his home country for 16 years – through radio, college “edutainment” rallies, research and advocacy and government policy formulation – told LifeSiteNews.com that the roving publicity circus that the annual International AIDS Conferences have become is a distraction from what is really happening in Africa and other countries blighted with the disease.

But worse than this, he says, they have become a vehicle for an inhuman leftist ideology under the guise of multi-million dollar philanthropy, a vehicle for a Hollywood-style celebrity cult and brazen anti-American political machine.

(via Relapsed Catholic)

The Politically Incorrect Alphabet

The Politically Incorrect Alphabet

(via PCL Linkdump)

Funny, No AARP Discount

From The Original Blog:

You can get a discount on recreational stuff in the Mansfield District of England by filling up a form and obtaining a discount card. One of the (voluntary) questions concerns the burning issue of ethnicity, to wit:

Which of the following describes your ethnic origin?

INDIAN
PAKISTANI
BANGLADESHI
BLACK CARIBBEAN
BLACK AFRICAN
BLACK OTHER
CHINESE
WHITE
IRISH
OTHER

Pity the poor Irish, the underclass of the Europe.

The Politics of Pity

An excerpt from a timely article by Mark Goldblatt:

My mother died of emphysema in December 2003. She spent the last two weeks of her life in a hospice, under heavy sedation but still gasping for air and coughing up phlegm, as my sister and I alternated vigils so that, in case she woke up, she wouldn't feel alone. She never woke up.

Watching my mom die of emphysema made me an expert in...well, what it's like to watch your mom die of emphysema. The experience didn't provide insight into the disease itself, its onset or prognosis, or its treatment options. I've no idea whether the federal government is spending too little, too much, or just enough on emphysema research. My mother's death didn't mystically impart a capacity to speak intelligently on these issues.

The brouhaha over conservative columnist Ann Coulter's disparaging remarks about 9/11 widows has obscured the validity of her underlying point. Grief does not confer competency. If Coulter went overboard in calling the four New Jersey women "harpies" and "the witches of East Brunswick," she's nevertheless correct in asserting the irrelevance of their views on pre-9/11 intelligence failures, the state of homeland security, and the ongoing war on Islamic terrorism. None of the women has the slightest claim to analytical proficiency in these areas. To act as though they do is to fall victim to the classical logical error argumentum ad misericordiam -- an argument that appeals to pity in order to support an unwarranted conclusion.

Good Question

Alston Ramsay on the Akaka bill:

How can legislation that requires the federal government to form a race-based committee with expertise in race determination to create a race-based list of people who will vote on a race-based government not be considered race-based?

The Seattle Public Schools Thank You For Sharing Your Concerns

After their bizarre definitions of racism caused such a stir,  they have revised that page with this message:

In response to the numerous concerns voiced regarding definitions posted on the Equity & Race website, we have decided to revise our website in a way that will hopefully provide more context to readers around the work that Seattle Public Schools is doing to address institutional racism. The intended purpose of our work in the area of race and social justice is to bring communities together through open dialogue and honest reflection around what is meant by racism and the impact is has on our society and more specifically, our students. Our intention is not to put up additional barriers or develop an ?us against them? mindset, nor is it to continue to hold onto unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality. It is our hope that we can explore the work of leading scholars in the areas of race and social justice issues to help us understand the dynamics and realities of how racism permeate throughout our society and use their knowledge to help us create meaningful change. This difficult work is vital to the success of our students and families. Thank you for sharing your concerns.

Warm regards,

Caprice D. Hollins, Psy.D.
Director of Equity & Race Relations
Seattle Public Schools

Unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality? By golly, I still think they haven't quite grasped it yet . . .

Definitions of Racism From The Seattle Public Schools

Via Clayton Cramer, just a sampling from the Seattle Public Schools web site:

Racism:
The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.

Cultural Racism:
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.

Having a future time orientation? Emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology? These people are nuts. And note how they're not even trying to hide their racism against whites any longer. Truly frightening.

Ted Kennedy: One Of Time Magazine's 10 Best Senators

Ted Kennedy: One Of Time Magazine's 10 Best Senators

And pound-for-pound, one of our best Senators underneath the water too . . .

I Was Dead Wrong About Black History Month

The real problem isn't that is only honors Blacks and Black History. The real problem is that a month is just waaaaaayyyy too long in this short-attention-span age. It's just too much. Heck, you could declare February as "Tom McMahon Month" and I would be getting tired of it by the second week.

So boil it down to a week, make it great, and for God's sake please give tired old George Washington Carver a rest for a while. The Tuskegee Airmen, too (we'll see them on the Cosby re-runs anyway).

Why Muslims Are The Only People Who Make Feminists Seem Laid-Back

We used to sing this song in my high school German class:

German Version	English Translation
C-A-F-F-E-E trink nicht so viel caffee	C-O-F-F-E-E don't drink so much cofee
Nicht fur Kinder ist die Turken Trank	Not for children is the Turkish drink
Schwech die Nerven macht sich blass und krank	It weakens the nerves and makes you pale and sick
Sei doch kein Musselmann	Don't be like a Muslim
Der ihn nicht lassen kann!	Who can't leave the stuff alone!

Maybe the answer to World Peace is simply De-Caf.

The Lesson That Muslims Need To Learn

Excerpts from Riding Sun:

In general, when someone accuses you of doing something, you will not prove them wrong by doing it. That's a lesson that Muslims currently protesting a Danish newspaper's publication of 12 editorial cartoons depicting Muhammed would do well to consider. ...

Some of them, not all, associate Islam with violence or intolerance. Perhaps the harshest of the lot depicts Muhammed wearing a bomb on his head. But as editorial cartoons go, these are relatively mild.

Nevertheless, the cartoons sparked an international Muslim outcry that boiled over in the past few days, spurring boycotts of Danish foodstuffs and demands that not only the newspaper, but also Denmark itself, apologize. The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia even called for the Danish government to punish the newspaper, free speech be damned. Muslim media weighed in, with the Arab News lamenting that "we have heard the usual responses about freedom of speech and governments having no control over the press and media."

The shrieks of outrage soon turned into threats of violence. Some Palestinians in Gaza burned Danish flags and chanted "War on Denmark, Death to Denmark", while others, wearing masks and carrying guns, seized an EU office there. In Iraq, a militant group called for attacks on targets in Denmark — and, for good measure, in Norway, where the cartoons were reprinted.

The swelling wave of Muslim fury forced Denmark to warn Danes not to travel to Saudi Arabia, and to "show caution" when travelling in other Muslim countries. And, following threats from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, Norway has advised its citizens in Gaza to leave, while the Danish Red Cross said it was evacuating an employee from Yemen (and two from Gaza) as boycotts and anger there grow stronger. "There have been concrete threats against our employees," said a Danish Red Cross spokesperson.

Ironically, the fury of the Muslim world's response to these cartoons shows that the cartoons themselves weren't entirely off-base. They depicted Muslims as intolerant and violent, and Muslims responded with intolerance and violence.

Those who protested the cartoons were united by a common demand that Muslims, and Islam, be treated with respect. The energy that fueled their outrage might be better spent demonstrating why such respect is warranted.

Gang-Related Gunfire At Southridge Mall

First, the facts in brief from WISN radio:

It's a story you heard first on News/Talk 1130 WISN...No one was seriously hurt during a gang-related fight at Southridge Mall Friday night. Police say two groups of youths confronted each other in the food court area. The scuffle spilled out into the parking lot. At least two gunshots was fired. A 14-year-old boy suffered a graze wound. Another teen was beaten. Several people were arrested. The shooter fled. Extra security is now in place at the mall.

Some Background: Southridge is one of the most popular malls in the Milwaukee. There used to be a similar mall named Northridge on the north side of town, but it closed about 3 years ago after shoppers stopped feeling safe going there. What's interesting is that the shoppers stopped going even though the local Mainstream Media did their best to impose a sort of "radio silence" on any of the problems there. But through word-of-mouth (this being in the pre-blog era) people learned what was going on there anyway, after a fashion. The self-imposed news vacuum actually made things much worse. Rumors and fact travelled arm-in-arm, and there was nobody around who was courageous enough to separate them. They thought if they didn't mention the problems, they would go away. And when the mall went away the problems did go away, but not in the way they intended.

Now the Milwaukee Mainstream Media (MMSM) are doing the same thing. Radio Silence. The only other report on this incident I could find was buried under Regional News Briefs on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's website. Don't they ever learn?

Funny thing is, I almost went to Southridge last night, but postponed my trip until today. Now, until this Radio Silence is broken, I think I'll just stay away. After all, I've learned to live without Northridge so I'm sure I can learn to live without Southridge too. And I'm sure the MMSM can learn to live without the Southridge ad revenue too, just like they did with Northridge.

The Catholics And The Boy Scouts

Richard Davis makes the all-too-uncommon obvious point:

If you can’t trust a gay priest with your children, why would you trust a gay scoutmaster, or for that matter any male homosexual in a position of intimate authority over your child?

The short answer is that the left demands that you do, and that’s that. Sure there will be victims, but that’s a small price to pay to achieve complete multicultural equality. If adult homosexuals want to go camping with your boys, they should have the same right to do that as does anyone else.

And so while the Catholic Church gets sued because it entrusted young boys to homosexual males, the Boy Scouts get sued because they won’t. Both organizations have taken a beating in the media -- the church deservedly so -- but only the Boys Scouts are being publicly ostracized. Their funding sources are being targeted, young Scouts are routinely subjected to verbal abuse from picketers, and they are hounded like criminals from public facilities for being both politically incorrect and morally unfit in the eyes of the left.

If you're on the Left, how do you stand to look at yourself in the mirror every day? Maybe that's why you guys are so surly all the time.

That Asterisk For Clarence Thomas

This has become much talked about around the country. Nicely summarized by the Media Blog:

MB reader Paul E. writes:

Check out this sentence from an editorial in today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"In losing a woman, the court with Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America."

This editorial board is way out of control, but nicely in sync with their party.

So Clarence Thomas deserves an asterisk because he doesn't think like black people should think, according to that esteemed journal of black thought — the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal.

So utterly, utterly clueless: The MJS still doesn't understand what the fuss is about.

Could It Happen Here?

Posts like this are why I consider The Fat Guy to be one of the Great Undiscovered Blogs in America:

Austin is Burning!

Oh, wait…that’s Paris.

Let me just point out for those who might need some pointing out - America has an immigration problem with foreigners who come here to work at unskilled labor for low wages, just like the currently-rioting Muslims in France. They are not terribly interested in assimilating into the greater American culture. American immigration policies make it damn difficult to deal with them in any positive way. America, too, is infected with the Politically Correct virus that adores equality of cultures (ours is a lower-grade virus than France’s, but it’s there, anyway, and it could easily ramp up to full strength as we make decisions on immigration based on emotion.)

To be sure, we have immigration laws that could check illegal immigration if that were desired. It apparently isn’t, very much, in the halls of power that decide where $$$ get spent and how. We also have a far stronger culture of acceptance of immigrants (we are a pretty damned mongrel country as it stands today, and thank God for that), especially when it is apparent those immigrants are willing to pitch in and make America strong. To date, we have not officially segregated Mexican immigrants into squalid housing projects designed by a maniac po-mo architect out in the hinters, and it’s doubtful that we ever will do that.

But that’s just one mistake we won’t make. If you read the stories and blog posts about the riots in Paris, though, you’ll see quite a few eerie parallels to the immigration problems we’re looking at in America today. If we think about it hard enough, it’s a pretty sure thing that we can avoid the fate of the Frogs entirely. But we do have to start thinking about, and then talking about it, from a rational point of view.

The Biggest Threat To Free Speech In America: The All-Powerful Gay Lobby

Some examples from Jerry Falwell:

• Eleven Christians were jailed under Pennsylvania's hate-crimes law in 2004 for singing in a public park and speaking out against homosexuality;

• In 1998, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution blaming religious people for hate crimes, declaring: "It is not an exaggeration to say that there is a direct correlation between these acts of discrimination, such as when gays and lesbians are called sinful and when major religious organizations say they can change if they tried, and the horrible crimes committed against gays and lesbians";

• A Canadian citizen was fined more than $6,000 for running a newspaper ad in which he quoted Leviticus 18:22, which states that homosexuality is a sin;

• A mayor in Canada was found to violate a human-rights ordinance when she refused to declare Gay Day;

• A minister in the United Kingdom was fined £20,000 (approximately $35,000) for an ad that described homosexuality as an abomination;

• A complaint was filed in a Dutch court against Pope John Paul II for his statement that "homosexual acts are contrary to the laws of nature." The Dutch court ruled the pope's status as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican state afforded him immunity from prosecution. But other religious leaders would not be immune.

Liberals, being Liberals, will never stand up for the 1st Amendment but will without fail blame Jerry Falwell for having the nerve to point this out. That's why they all hate themselves and are always in such a bad mood. That and that they are losing just about every election lately.

I'm trying to up my comment count, by the way . . . .

Whites Riot. Anti-Whites Riot. But On ABC, Blacks Never Riot.

Whites Riot. Anti-Whites Riot. But On ABC, Blacks Never Riot.

Pretty neat, eh? Same story, contradictory headlines. And some great commentary by Clayton Cramer:

Fox News is covering the aftermath of a neo-Nazi demonstration in Toledo, Ohio. The neo-Nazi message includes many different offensive ideas, but one dominant theme is that blacks (along with other "non-Aryans") are stupid, emotional, violent, and incapable of controlling themselves. (I sense a little projection go on there.)

So what happened when the neo-Nazis held their rally? A crowd of largely black counterdemonstrators showed up, as is their right, to express an alternative point of view. Not surprisingly, some of the counterdemonstrators got angry, and started throwing rocks at the neo-Nazis. Dumb, but somewhat understandable. When the violence started, the police escorted the neo-Nazis out of the area.

So what happened next? The counterdemonstrators started looting houses and shops, and kicking in doors of homes in the area. The footage showed them not only stealing stuff from homes, from throwing television sets from second story windows. Theft, while wrong, has a certain logic to it: "You have something that I don't have, and I'm not willing to work to get it." Destroying stuff? That's something that someone who is stupid, emotional, violent, and incapable of controlling himself does.

I would dearly love for the police, after they arrest some of these idiots, to ask them this question: "Why did you work so hard to conform to neo-Nazi stereotypes of black people?"

Let's Roll! vs Let's Roll Over

An excerpt from Mark Steyn on the Flight 93 Memorial shaped like the Crescent of Islam:

But each to his own. If Mr Murdoch sincerely believes in a “crescent of embrace”, let him build one – at the headquarters of a “moderate” Islamic lobby group, or in the parking lot of your wackier colleges. To impose it on Flight 93 – to, in effect, hijack those passengers a second time – is an abomination. Flight 93 is about what happens when you understand that some things can’t be embraced. Perhaps Mr Beamer and his comrades did indeed “look them in the eye” and saw there was nothing to negotiate, nothing to “embrace”. So they acted – and, faced with a novel and unprecedented form of terror, they stopped it cold in little more than an hour. Todd Beamer asked that telephone operator to join him in reciting the 23rd Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” He knew there would be no happy ending that day, but in their resourcefulness and sacrifice he and his fellow passengers gave their country the next best thing: a hopeful ending. That’s what the Flight 93 Memorial should be honouring.

Instead, in its feeble cultural cringe, the Crescent of Embrace hands the terrorists of Flight 93 the victory they were denied on September 11th. And it profoundly dishonours Todd Beamer, Thomas Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Mark Bingham and other forgotten heroes of that flight.

Most of us are all but resigned to losing New York’s Ground Zero memorial to a pile of non-judgmental if not explicitly anti-American pap: The minute you involve big-city politicians and foundations and funding bodies and “artists” you’re on an express chute to the default mode of the cultural elite. But surely it’s not too much to hope that in Pennsylvania the very precise, specific, individual, human scale of one great act of American heroism need not be buried under another soggy dollop of generic prettified passivity. A culture that goes to such perverse lengths to disdain its heroes cannot survive and doesn’t deserve to.

Four years ago, Todd Beamer’s rallying cry was quoted by Presidents and rock stars alike. That’s all that’s needed in that field: the kind of simple dignified memorial you see on small-town commons saluting Civil war veterans, a granite block with the names of the passengers and the words “LET’S ROLL.” The “crescent of embrace”, in its desperation to see no enemies and stand for nothing, represents the precise opposite of Beamer, Glick, Burnett and co: Are you ready, guys? Let’s roll over.

You Can't Say That! You Must Be Tolerant.

A terrific post from Anno Domini:

The California legislature recently passed a new law that "would prohibit the use of any negative appeal based on prejudice against LGBT people by candidates or campaign committees." How can it be, you might ask, that standing for traditional marriage in a political campaign would be illegal? The catch is that this would apply only to those who voluntarily sign a pledge from the California Code of Fair Campaign Practices. Thus, should the Governator sign this, California candidates will either be prohibited from supporting anything the homosexual lobby wants, or they will be labeled as candidates who are not committed to a fair campaign. On the other hand, this may just mean that a substantial portion of California candidates will opt out of the Code of Fair Campaign Practices, making it functionally irrelevant.

But let's all be reminded that many of those who proclaim they want "equality" and "tolerance" (here the lobbying group sponsoring this was "Equality California") also want to silence those who disagree with them. It's no wonder that this sounds an alarm for Christians, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and others who stand for traditional marriage. When a Pastor is convicted of a hate crime for preaching against homosexual acts in his church and when a Christian Legal Society group is not permitted to be an official school group because it violates the public school's anti-discrimination policy, we ought to be concerned. I am.

Banned Cartoons

Banned Cartoons

Am I A Homophobe If I Burn This Flag?

Am I A Homophobe If I Burn This Flag?

(via Grow-A-Brain)

Flight 93 Memorial Designed As A Muslim Crescent Points Toward Mecca

Flight 93 Memorial Designed As A Muslim Crescent Points Toward Mecca

(via Reasoned Audacity)

Flight 93 Memorial Designed As A Muslim Crescent

Flight 93 Memorial Designed As A Muslim Crescent

Gee, this is such a good idea I think we in Milwaukee should open up a Jeffrey Dahmer Museum designed as a diner.

I Am SOOOO Sick Of Hunter S. Thompson

And judging by these excerpts, so is Brent Bozell:

Worshippers of the wild and dissolute drug culture of the 1960s gathered at their temple in Woody Creek, Colo., on an August Saturday night to pay tribute to the booze-and-drug-soaked journalistic legend Hunter S. Thompson, exactly six months after he shot himself in the head in the middle of a phone call with his wife. It was, in a way, a perfect ending to symbolize Thompson's self-absorbed, self-destructive worldview. How pathetic is it that some people are actually celebrating this?

The next time you hear the biggest hearts in Hollywood railing against how the government or corporations waste millions of dollars on their "toys" rather than helping the poor, think of the Hunter Thompson memorial service. Actor Johnny Depp spent a reported $2 million constructing a giant tower (taller than the Statue of Liberty) to shoot Thompson's ashes into the sky with some very loud fireworks. The New York Times described it as "a rocket-like structure embedded with a dagger. It was crowned by Mr. Thompson's logo, a two-and-a-half-ton red fist with two thumbs and a psychedelic peyote button pulsating at its center, a Day-Glo sight visible for miles around." The Times respectfully called it the "complete canonization of Mr. Thompson." ...

How perfect this event was to demonstrate how Hollywood and much of modern popular culture has been devoted not to lifting men up but dragging them down into a fuzzy world of addiction and self-absorption, and ultimately self-pity. The libertine elite at Woody Creek came to celebrate a man whose creed wasn't about loving or giving or helping or holiness: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

Those Are Your Restrictions, Not Mine

It was this post from David Weinberger that got me thinking of this subject:

No Discounts For Jews In Massachusetts

Last year, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts set aside one summer Saturday as No Tax Day: Whatever you buy for under $2,500 was free of the 5% sales tax.

Some Jews complained because the orthodox can't touch money on the sabbath.

So, the Commonwealth responded admirably by declaring an entire tax free weekend, today and tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the Commonwealth didn't consult its religious calendar: Sunday is Tisha B'Av, a fast day remembering the destruction of the Temples. Guess what orthodox Jews can't do on Tisha B'Av? Yes, they can't eat, bathe, wear leather, have sex...or touch money. You spend the day in shul studying Torah, so until the mall opens up a Study, Daven 'n' Beyond store, there's not going to be a lot of temptation to shop anyway.

Nice try, Commonwealth!

The surface layer of this story is that some Jews are upset that they can't get out of paying some taxes. (playing to stereotype? Naaa.....! )  The real point, though, is that the State Commonwealth of Massachusetts should have done more to accomodate the orthodox Jews.

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me. The whole world needs to accomodate me. It's not a Jewish attitude, but rather one of our time. The self-esteem generation. Don't believe me? Then how about this Jewish story from 40 years ago:

On October 6, 1965, Sandy Koufax, the overpowering lefty for the Los Angeles Dodgers, did not pitch in the first game of the World Series against the Minnesota Twins because game day fell on Yom Kippur.

My father was not a baseball fan then. Our family had emigrated to the United States less than six years before. He was fifty five years old and still struggling to learn English and many other new skills, like driving a car. Baseball was far down his list of priorities. He didn't know a home run from a rerun, a base hit from a face lift. He didn't know a baseball pitcher from a pitcher of water - and couldn't care any less.

"It's a stupid game," he announced in his thick accent after watching a few minutes on TV once. "Not like football. Now there's a game!" My father was referring to soccer, calling it by the name it is known throughout the world, not American football, which he also thought idiotic.

But then, Sandy Koufax refused to pitch the first game of the World Series. Sandy Koufax went to shul that day. He fasted. And, to my father, baseball was still a stupid game, but all of a sudden, it was not played by only stupid people. Sandy Koufax did not hide his Jewishness. He took a righteous stand. And my father, along with millions of Jews, was proud of him. "He's a good Jewish boy," my father said. His highest praise.

Right there, in those two stories, is the "progress" we've made in the past 40 years. If that story were to happen today, Sandy Koufax would have demanded that Major League Baseball reschedule the World Series, just to accomodate him. And just so there's no misunderstanding, orthodox Jews are just a miniscule part of it. I mean, any Jew who in this day and age chooses orthodoxy over Reform pretty much knows the hassles they're signing themselves up for. And for the most part they carry that burden quietly with as much Grace and Dignity they can muster without popping a vein. Just like Sandy Koufax.

No, in my experience the ones who are all too ready to foist their restrictive life choices on everyone around them are the new age crowd. Especially with regard to food. Ever try to have a pot luck with a bunch of vegans? Bet you leave hungry, is all I got to say. And why is it so many vegetarians have never learned how to cook vegetarian cuisine so it tastes like something other than prison food? Are spices considered "meat"?

And then there's the Surprise! factor. Someone I know rather well once took the trouble to cook a turkey for a Thanksgiving gathering of a rather leftish crowd. After going through all that work, several of the diners suddenly informed him that they only ate "free-range" poultry. No previous notice on this little fact at all. Although they wouldn't stoop to consuming regular farm-raised turkey, somehow it didn't faze them at all being complete asses.

Look, I could care less if you want to eat vegetarian, vegan, free-range, or any other oddball way of eating. But just remember, those are your restrictions, not mine.

And could somebody pass me that steak over there? Yeah, the really juicy one with all that fat on it. Thanks. And bon appetit!

Those Wacky California Liberals

Clayton Cramer gives 14 examples of the stuff that was common in the deranged county where he used to live (Sonoma County, California), and where liberal was a proud label. Here are three of them:

2. Seeing bumper stickers--and not just one--that said: "Sorry I missed you in church Sunday. I was too busy practicing withcraft and becoming a lesbian." Yes, it was a very long bumper sticker.

3. Having a pre-school teacher tell her class that the First Thanksgiving was to thank the Indians. When my wife went to the teacher and pointed out that this was not correct, the teacher explained that she knew better, but if she explained that the Pilgrims were thanking God, she would get lots of complaints from parents.

4. A friend worked for one of the public school districts; she kept a low profile about her faith, and it was a good thing. She overheard hiring discussions in which those making the decisions speculated about the possibility that someone being considered for a teaching position might be a fundamentalist--and the clear implication was that this might be a reason not to hire. (Yes, illegal, but so what?) Another teacher I knew was approached by a teacher who didn't know her well, and asked, "Did you get any fundamentals this year?" (Meaning, "any fundamentalist kids in your class"--but what's a little ignorance when you are being a bigot?)

UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs

UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs

The mascot of UC Santa Cruz Athletics. (via Paul Brewer)

The Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes

The Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes

A re-post from a couple of years ago. Soon every college in the US of A will have a vegetable-based mascot.

Chosen For What They Represent

An excerpt from Mac Johnson:

No one in his right mind (which excludes the PC crowd right off, doesn’t it?), would imagine that a group would seek to belittle something by admiring it, yet that is exactly what is being alleged by the proponents of the idea that Indian mascots are hurtful.  Are Indians unique as human-themed mascots?  Not in the least.  If you believe that Illinois being the “Illini” is a grievous wrong and dehumanizing, then you have to also believe that the people of Boston hate the Irish --so much they named their basketball team after them.  Does Ole Miss disrespect Rebels?  Do Minnesotans degrade the Vikings? And what are we to make of the Spartans, the Trojans, the Yankees, the Steelers, the Oilers, the Orangemen, the Cavaliers, the Kings, the Cowboys, the Packers, the Bills, the Raiders, the Patriots and dozens of other teams?  Have we all been wounded by such homages?

The Indian peoples were chosen for mascots in so many places in America because they are admired.  They have been romanticized in the foundation mythology of the nation as noble and special.  They have been internalized by the culture that fought them as part of our shared national identity.  They represent independence, freedom, fierceness, courage, endurance and uniqueness of place. And if you have to be defined, that’s not a bad set of words to be defined by.  It is hardly hostile or abusive. ...

By the way, I wonder if it has ever occurred to the NCAA that they are headquartered in Indian-apolis? Oh, the humanity.

Due Process

An excerpt from Wendy McElroy:

Making someone jump through bureaucratic hoops that embody a biased procedure is not due process. A kangaroo court that includes the right of appeal to a higher kangaroo authority does not constitute due process. It is a travesty.

Due process does not reside in bureaucracy. It is a set of legal principles established through tradition to protect "the accused," who is innocent until proven guilty. Those principles include the right to face and question your accuser, the right to examine all evidence against you.

Here's A Little Help For The NCAA

By now you've probably heard that the NCAA has deemed that Braves, Chippewas, Choctaws, Sioux, Illini, Indians, Redmen, and Savages are unacceptable nicknames for college teams.

This great site has a comprehensive listing of college nicknames in use to-day. From that list, here are some additional ones that look problematic to me, given the NCAA's current level of thinking:

• Archers ---  Glorification of Violence
• Aztecs --- Insensitivity to Native Americans
• Battling Bishops --- Religious Insensitivity
• Beavers --- Sexist Double Entendre
• Blue Angels --- Religious Insensitivity
• Blue Demons --- Religious Insensitivity
• Blue Devils --- Religious Insens