RIP

This is how the men of my generation will always remember Farrah Fawcett. The biggest selling poster of all time - 12 million copies and counting.

Did You Know Michael Jackson Could Sing?

With all of the bilge in the media, here is the best article on Michael Jackson - and it was written four years ago.

Clown Nose Off, Clown Nose On

Wading through these videos will take some time but consider it a teachable moment.

Jon Stewart would have been exposed as a fool and a knave to his audience by now were it not for the fact that they are more historically illiterate than he is. Let this then be a lesson about why it is dangerous to get your "news" from the "pseudo-news comedian" who in the process of crossing the lines between news and nonsense irreparably blurs them. In what appears to be a serious conversation about torture Cliff May and Stewart bring up the atomic bombings during World War II around the 5:50 mark. Stewart then professes that he thinks President Harry Truman was a war criminal.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

A few days later after presumably digesting the fact that he called President Harry Truman a war criminal and perhaps a couple of e-mails calling on him to do so, Stewart does the honorable thing and apologizes on air for his comments.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Harry Truman Was Not a War Criminal
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

And now the historical facts behind the decision to drop the atomic bombs courtesy of Bill Whittle. If Jon Stewart had a working knowledge of these facts he could have saved himself a great deal of trouble and would not have misinformed his audience.

But I doubt he would have been as hip and cool.

Facebook

I was recently bidden to enter the black hole that is Facebook by my brother-in-law. I responded to him "Aren't we too old for this?" Since that initial invitation, my brother-in-law's usage of Facebook has declined precipitously. I think the reason is that he thought he could keep up with it on his BlackBerry but the initial onslaught was so intense that he decided he might actually need his thumbs for something important someday.

I still check in periodically but it continues to feel alien to me. I have asked both of my progeny to explain it to me but to no avail; I am still an outsider looking in. Then I ran across a post by Future Pundit which put it all in perspective for me (emphasis added):

"Different media (blogs, discussion forums, social networking sites, phone messaging, etc) encourage and discourage different kinds of intellectual activity. My own writing of web logs has made me do a lot more reading of material to give me more accurate and informed opinions. The web logs end up serving as an extended memory bank on many topics and I understand far more about a variety of topics as a result. But from what I've been reading in Facebook posts so far what I see is that media form seems to discourage deeper intellectual development. A larger number of less informed people speak to each other in smaller groups about trivial things.

There are probably corners of Facebook that have more substantial discussions. But the format gives you so much coming from your old childhood friends that it seems defocusing and shallow. People writing higher quality material are better off writing blogs."

What Bush And Batman Have In Common

From Andrew Klavan at The Wall Street Journal:

A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .

Oh, wait a minute. That's not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a "W."

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

And like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society -- in which people sometimes make the wrong choices -- and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

"The Dark Knight," then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year's "300," "The Dark Knight" is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

Conversely, time after time, left-wing films about the war on terror -- films like "In The Valley of Elah," "Rendition" and "Redacted" -- which preach moral equivalence and advocate surrender, that disrespect the military and their mission, that seem unable to distinguish the difference between America and Islamo-fascism, have bombed more spectacularly than Operation Shock and Awe.

Why is it then that left-wingers feel free to make their films direct and realistic, whereas Hollywood conservatives have to put on a mask in order to speak what they know to be the truth? Why is it, indeed, that the conservative values that power our defense -- values like morality, faith, self-sacrifice and the nobility of fighting for the right -- only appear in fantasy or comic-inspired films like "300," "Lord of the Rings," "Narnia," "Spiderman 3" and now "The Dark Knight"?

The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of "The Dark Knight" itself: Doing what's right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

When heroes arise who take those difficult duties on themselves, it is tempting for the rest of us to turn our backs on them, to vilify them in order to protect our own appearance of righteousness. We prosecute and execrate the violent soldier or the cruel interrogator in order to parade ourselves as paragons of the peaceful values they preserve. As Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, "He has to run away -- because we have to chase him."

That's real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values; and that while movie stars may strut in the bright light of our adulation for pretending to be heroes, true heroes often must slink in the shadows, slump-shouldered and despised -- then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

Perhaps that's when Hollywood conservatives will be able to take off their masks and speak plainly in the light of day.

Can The Republic Survive?

Bruce Fein offers these observations in a recent Washington Times article:

"In “Federalist 55,” James Madison observed that, “Republican government presupposes the existence of [qualities in human nature that justify esteem and confidence] in a higher degree than any other form.” Those qualities include wisdom, honesty and courage; a subordination of egomania to the common good; moderation; self-doubt and self-discipline; and, charity toward the shortcomings of others. A culture that pays homage to these qualities, as in the time of the American Revolution, gives birth to towering leaders like Cincinnatus, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

As president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 amid petty bickering and maneuvering for political advantage, Washington admonished the delegates: “If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest may repair.”

The delegates did not jeer. They did not retort, “We don't have the votes.” Instead, they labored to subordinate their parochial interests to the common good and achieved a miracle. A century later, the United States Constitution was acclaimed by Lord Gladstone as, “The most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”

American culture has degenerated since the Founding Fathers into a celebration of vice, ignorance, drivel and self-promotion. Money, beauty, sexual indulgence, athletics and fame are saluted as the summum bonum of existence. Exemplary are the wild enthusiasm for “American Idol,” obsession with the tawdry comings and goings of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton and the apotheosis of professional athletes who contribute nothing to preserving government of the people, by the people, for the people. It is inconceivable that a Washington, Madison or Jefferson or Lincoln could emerge from the contemporary culture."

Whoopi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Will wonders never cease?

Rosie, we hardly knew ye - but what we knew was more than enough. At least this seems to be a move in the right direction.

Yesterday's Flower Children

... are today's blooming idiots. The comments by former hippies turned gentrified home owners in Haight-Ashbury about an invasion of young, dirty, smelly street people are truly priceless.

"Barbara Libasci's home sits near a rock 'n' roll landmark: the house at 710 Ashbury St. where Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead once lived.

She has a front-row seat at a daily alternative music event she'd rather not attend. She often finds homeless kids sleeping on the lawn of the former Dead house. They climb the picket fence to peer inside the front windows and pick flowers from the garden.

"They camp right in the driveway," said the retired nurse, who lives in the former Haight-Ashbury headquarters of the Hells Angels. "I have to tell them to move so the owners don't back out over them. They're degrading the property."

Even some of those who try to help are getting fed up.

John Grima, a program director at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, founded in the 1960s, says his agency provides "nonjudgmental" services for homeless youths. "Still, there's this assumption of a free ride," he said.

Grima said a teen asked him for change on Haight Street. Grima offered him slices of pepperoni pizza. The young man refused, saying he was vegetarian.

"I said, 'OK, then don't eat it,' then I got mad," Grima said. "I said, 'Wait a minute, I don't owe you anything. I'm happy to help you, but I don't owe you a thing.'

"Recently, the stance against the homeless has hardened. Residents last year resurrected the Haight Ashbury Improvement Assn. to push the city to crack down on loitering. They have started a "court watch" program to monitor cases and push judges to sentence offenders to community service and order them into treatment.

Police have also cracked down. The department has sent teens home on its own dime and maintains two full-time outreach officers to coax youths into seeking help. But now officers ticket for "quality of life" offenses, including illegal camping and drinking in public.

At a recent public meeting, Homeless Youth Alliance director Mary Howe's plan for a center with beds and showers was greeted with anger.

"We're setting ourselves up as the last stop on the help train," fumed Carolyn McKenna, 54, a substitute teacher who moved to the area in 2003.

"Like, if we don't help these kids, they're going to be forever subjected to a life of misery and agony," she added.

McKenna said she was tired of being criticized for the "crime" of owning a home. "Haight-Ashbury is not synonymous with anarchy," she said. "It's not fair to homeowners with their entire net worth tied up here. I'd be disingenuous if I said I wasn't worried about property values."

The View

I am greatly concerned about TV shows like this. Unfortunately, this has to be seen to be believed.



I will follow this up with a more comprehensive post shortly. Though I will say that this buttresses my argument for rescinding women's suffrage.

Also, please see The Anchoress' take on Joyce Behar's ridiculous list of President Bush's impeachable offenses. The woman is a moron. Especially, if it's true because Al Gore and Jimmy Carter say so!

And, yes Rosie, we do think you think the troops are terrorists - along with all of your wing nut friends. You support the troops, my ass.