Month: December 2004

This Will Not Stand

In The Return of the Curse of the Creature’s Ghost Norbizness breaks the news that I am being dealt a humiliating setback in a weblog contest I’ve only just now been informed existed:

It’s official: if you are linked by The Left (d/b/a “Happy Furry Puppy Story Time With Norbizness”), the chances of your winning the 2004 Weblog Awards (previously known as “The Awardies”, “The Cable Ace Awards”, the “Cross de Guerre with Palm Leaf”, and “The 12th Annual Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievment in the Field of Exellence”) are virtually nil. There is simply no other non-insane explanation for this phenomenon, as you will see in the following bill of particulars,:

— in the Best Overall Weblog category, the combined votes of Talking Points Memo and Political Animal, whose hits are in the millions, are approximately one-eleventh the total of The Corner at the National Review, a repository of two-word posts, fake e-mails, and John Derbyshire. These cretins also are also outdoing the combined efforts of Reason’s Hit & Run and Crooked Timber by 10-to-1 in the Best Group Blog category.

— in the Best Humor Weblog category, Jesus’ General, the only recognizable left-of-center site out of 15 nominees, is garnering only 5.5% of the vote, distantly trailing some tepid Onion-lite and Dave Barry-lite right-of-center sites. Even resident Martha Stewart in bondage fetishist, Jeff G. at Protein Wisdom, is getting smoked like a Doral Light by Fred Leuchter, proving that the curse of The Left makes no distinction in its thorough disembowelings.

[…]

— Dan Drezner and Digby’s Hullabaloo are being dealt humiliating set-backs in the Best of the Top 100 category. Sorry guys, it’s nothing personal.

In fact, Matthew Yglesias is the only liberal winning in any category. It happens to be “best liberal blog.” In all other categories, the left is getting its ass kicked.

Ah, I remember those good old days when we could make a publicly held media company back down in a matter of days. Seems like only yesterday. Now we are a bare hulk of a blogospheric movement. The shame.

Useful Idiot

I see that certain people in the Democratic leadership have been listening to Rush Limbaugh again:

We’ve got to repudiate, you know, the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there sometimes on our party’s left … We can’t have our party identified by Michael Moore and Hollywood as our cultural values. – Al From, CEO, Democratic Leadership Council

Yes, it’s always a good idea to sling the word “anti-American” around when talking about members of your own party. It’s so helpful to reiterate Republican talking points in public and suggest that Michael Moore and “Hollywood” must be repudiated because they are unacceptable to the public despite the fact that their “product” seems to sell quite well to a rather significant faction of the party.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have been very successful inviting their sociopathic lunatic fringe right onto the dais and treating them like royalty. You didn’t see the Republicans rejecting Falwell or Coulter because they say inflammatory things, do you? No, because a large number of their constituents think they are terrific. It’s called having respect for your grassroots.

Perhaps the reason the Republicans are winning is because the American people simply appreciate something other than a bucket of lukewarm spit in their leaders and instinctively see through all this silly “Sistah Soljah” bullshit for the half assed, lame symbolic capitulation it really is.

It’s a thought.

Little Signs Everywhere

I normally don’t weigh in on this endlessly stultifying topic of academic liberalism, but it’s getting a bit more interesting now that professors are being physically threatened. From Marie at The Left Coaster: Brown Shirts in Cyber-Space I find that a poor little Republican girl at Cal State Long Beach is upset because one of her professors is a liberal and it’s inappropriate for him to be talking politics in his English class, especially since he doesn’t like the president. Oh boohoohoohoohoo!

This story wouldn’t even be worth discussing (this snivelling woe-is-me victim whine is like a broken record) except that this quivering little Republican twit put this professor’s name on this right wing “complaint” web site and the story was picked up all over the wingnut press. Predictably, the professor started getting death threats.

For a real treat, read the original complaint posted by our future Harpy of America.

I am taking this English composition class to fufill my general education (GE) requirements. On the first night of this class, Sep. 1, 2004, Dr. Snider went over the the class syllabus for the semester. This syllabus includes 5 essays that are to be turned in over the semester. One of these essays is to be written on a film that he will show in class, as he so stated will most likely be Farenheit 9/11. (Because Michael Moore is a genius and his film exposes how our so called “President Bush” is an idiot.) He then proceeded for the next hour and a half of this ENGLISH class to talk strictly about his hate of “president” (he kept doing the quote signs with his fingers) Bush and the Iraqi War. There were no more attempts made my Dr. Snider to talk about the true subject matter of the class, ENGLISH. I have been in this class for almost 2 weeks now and politics seems to be the main issue lectured on, however he makes lame attempts to tie his own liberal propaganda into an english example, (; Newspaper articles, Presidential Speeches, etc. )Furthermore, a second essay that we are to wirte must be written on a book we have read that appears on his “approved reading list”. The list of books in his syllabus has a dominant theme: Sexual perversion and anti Bush rhetoric. ( A copy of this list can be found on his website at www.csulb.edu/~csnider) This website which indicated in his syllabus “contains important class material” is a website dedicated primarily to his own gay literature and anti Bush poetry.

[…]

On the first night of this class, a student sitting next to me who had apparently become disgusted by the teachers quote that “Bush is just as evil as Saddam Hussein” raised his hand and asked how Dr. Snider could even make such a comparison. I too spoke out and said that there is no way that you can compare a dictator who gasses thousands of people with our President.

[…]

This other student and I were instantly ridiculed by the rest of the class and told by Dr. Snider that it was all “the fault of the Fox so called “news” media’s propaganda and that he would also like to show the class “OutFoxed” and another film on the Lies of Bush and Tony Blair to the world to show us what is really going on.

Time of Posting : Saturday, September 11, 2004.

Oh my, Gawd! It was so, like, totally, unfair! This fag was, like, teaching junk that me and, like, one other guy, like, didn’t want to he-ar! Even though I’m, like, in college I shouldn’t have to listen to stuff I don’t, like, agree with!

Of course that huckster David Horowitz is on the case and published the poor little girl’s story (in which she reveals that she believes college English is supposed to be sixth grade remedial grammar class.) Townhall got into the act and lil’ Melissa even got a shot on FoxNews.

I wrote my paragraph very tongue in cheek and purposely ridiculed the insufficient evidence that Michael Moore used in his film. However, when I received my paragraph back, I found it marked up in red ink by Dr. Snider with comments like, ” You miss the point of the film”, or that advisor “was Richard Clark… a terrorist expert!” I was blown away by these comments. I didn’t realize that I was being graded on the way I interpreted the film! From what I understood about our in class paragraphs, Dr. Snider was only supposed to grade grammar, spelling, and mechanics, of which I had no corrected errors. Funny though that I still received the lowest grade in the class on this assignment (after receiving all A’s on past assignments), while papers with numerous spelling errors and mechanical corrections but with an anti-Bush perspective received A’s.

[…]

Dr. Snider has taken it upon himself to give us a moral/ ethical and spiritual lesson before each class begins. I have no problem with morals and spirituality, however the university offers ethics classes; I enrolled and paid for an English class. I do not believe that Dr. Snider is trained to lecture on such topics. Moreover, from what I do know of his ethics and morals, I feel slightly offended that he somehow believes that his morals are superior to mine. (I am unable to draw an ethical comparison between President Bush and Saddam Hussein, as does Dr. Snider, which he so stated on the very first night of class.)

I am disheartened to see a class full of students whom simply do not seem to know any better, being brainwashed by the leftist views of Dr. Snider only weeks before the Presidential elections. I believe that what has gone on in this course is an all too typical example of the blatant abuse of power by university professors nationwide.

It’s a good thing that Uncle Davey Horowitz doesn’t grade his papers as harshly as Dr. Snider because he might have asked 18 year old Melissa to back up her assertions that Dr. Snider is not trained to lecture on certain topics or that this is an all too typical example of blatant abuse of power by university professors nationwide. But then, he almost certainly “helped” little Melissa write those words didn’t he?

Yes, the poor, poor little conservatives on campus, so scorned, so dissed. And all those poor brainwashed classmates who aren’t as wise and as knowledgeable as little Melissa. The only thing to be done is kill the professor. Marie’s post discusses other similar incidents. Apparently, it’s not at all rare for liberal professors to get death threats these days after their names are posted on the internet.

Republicans may have total control of the government, but that isn’t good enough. As Lincoln said in the Cooper Union Speech I posted about the other day:

… what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly – done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated – we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

They will not be satisfied until we agree with them and prove that we agree with them in thought, word and deed. Clearly, whatever brainwashing has been going on on college campuses these past twenty years or so has not resulted in a loss of political power from the right. But that doesn’t matter. Liberalism must be utterly destroyed, its adherants converted and all remnants of its philosophy purged from the discourse.

When, I wonder, will we be willing to admit that this culture war is a war of survival?

Juicy Nugget

Seems there’s word on the street that the Clintons are pushing Joe Lockhart for DNC chair.

I dunno. I have a soft spot for Lockhart from the Starr Wars, but isn’t he primarily a defensive player? I think we’re looking for some offense in this position.

Even though I was not a Deaniac, I came out way back in June for Dean as DNC chair mostly because I believe that the next chairman has to be able to harness some of this grassroots energy. And frankly, I think the party would be well served by a reformer who simultaneously represents the party. The activists have to take ownership of the party label and start to defend it against the GOP or we aren’t going to get anywhere. As long as Democrats berate themselves more than the Republicans we’re in trouble.

Still, I don’t have a real dog in this fight. I’m worn out with this stuff. Lockhart’s a good guy. I don’t hate the Clintons or the Deaniacs or the Kerry people. I don’t even know if this position is really as crucial as some think. Were Jim Nichols or Jim Gilmore or Ed Gillespie crucial to the GOP’s success? Not really.

May the best Democrat win.

Long Memories

The Belmont Club has an interesting post up about the reason for the Franco American “troubles.” Seems they think the French are still fuming about a slight from 50 years ago:

Some readers have argued that French intriguing against the US in Iraq is payback for the “abandonment” of the French Army at Dien Bien Phu by the US in 1954 when all they expected was “some air cover”.

This is, of course, nonsense. The French intriguing is clearly payback for John Adams’ dispatches to congress before the Quasi-War of 1798-1800 in which he said:

“I will never send another minister to France without assurances that he will be received, respected, and honored, as the representative of a great, free, powerful, and independent nation.”

Ohh lala, they were very upset and they obviously still are.

Certainly, their “intriguing” couldn’t possibly have anything to do with current events because U.S. actions have been nothing short of perfect. They just can’t let go of the past. That’s why we call it old Europe.

Via The Daou Report

The Merchant Of Porno

First, I’d like to apologise for the dearth of posting this last week. I’ve been unusually busy, but I’m also pretty burned out. Sometimes my muse (who I think may have voted for Schwarzenegger) just decides to take a vacation at club med and leave me sitting at the terminal unable to write anything but rude defenses of my spelling errors.

Hopefully, I’ll be back at it in force before too long.

Meanwhile, there is always the daily atrocity of the morals police:

The Moderate Voice kindly alerted me to this:

US distributors of the film Merchant of Venice, which premiered in London this week, have asked the director to cut out a background fresco by a Venetian old master so it is fit for American television viewers.

US networks have been embroiled in controversy over naked flesh since Janet Jackson exposed a breast during a half-time performance during the Superbowl. A lesser fuss has blown up about a trailer for the hit television series Desperate Housewives on Monday Night football, in which an actress with her back to the camera drops her towel in a locker room.

Distributors regularly ask for cuts in films so that they can be shown on US tele-vision and by airlines. The request to “paint-box the wallpaper” – cover over the fresco – was contained in a letter from the US distrib-utors, Sony, to Michael Radford.

The director had already anticipated one request by shooting extra scenes for television in which bare-breasted prostitutes are fully clothed.

He was also asked to remove scenes of male kissing, a brief female kissing scene – and simulated slaughtering of goats.

The fifth request was to cut out footage showing meat carcasses.

Finally, according to Mr Radford, there was “a very curious request which said ‘Could you please paint-box out the wallpaper?’. I said wallpaper, what wallpaper? This is the 16th century, people didn’t have wall-paper.”

When he examined the scenes, he realised the letter was referring to frescoes by Paolo Veronese, the acclaimed Venetian 16th-century artist, which, when examined closely, showed a naked cupid.

“A billion dollars worth of Veronese great master’s frescoes they want paint-boxed out because of this cupid’s willy. It is absolutely absurd,” he said.

Here is some more filthy trash by this 16th century pornographer:

In Hollywood some nobody gets the word to crack down on sexual images because “people” are up in arms about morality and the children. The nobody who makes the decision about what is morally acceptable is completely clueless about everything. This is the result.

Get ready. We are going to see more and more of this. The only thing worse than putting the cops or the preachers in charge of deciding what is acceptable for people to watch is letting some nameless loser bureaucrat do it.

I’d love to hear the rationale for censoring meat carcasses. Either somebody is very kinky or we are going beyond self-censorship of sexuality and violence to include general ickiness. The good news is that if icky meat carcasses are out of line then we can expect that Jerry Falwell’s continuous television appearances will soon be severely curtailed. There’s a silver lining to everything.

More Outrageous TV

“Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations,” reads an explanation from CBS, “and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks.”

All the hoopla about Monday Night Football is a misdirection from bullshit like this. If there is a problem with television, I would suggest that this is by far the most important problem that we face — the voluntary censorship of certain political speech by the networks. Remember, most people get all their information from television.

If anybody wants to burn up the switchboards of a television network, this might be the one that should get those fingers walking.