For the Left, every text is ‘living’
A number of well-known spokesmen on the left have voiced reservations, not only about the Republican decision to have members of Congress — both Republicans and Democrats — read the Constitution aloud at the opening of the latest session of Congress, but also about Americans’ veneration of the Constitution.
Three examples:
In a recent appearance on MSNBC, Washington Post staff writer Ezra Klein said: “The issue with the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person.”
Joy Behar asked her guests on CNN’s Headline News, “Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand?”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) complained that “they are reading it [the Constitution] like a sacred text.”
What troubles Mr. Klein, Ms. Behar, and Congressman Nadler?
The answer is that for leftism — though not necessarily for every individual who considers himself a leftist — there are no sacred texts. The two major examples are the Constitution and the Bible.
One cannot understand the Left without understanding this. The demotion of the sacred in general and of sacred texts specifically is at the center of leftist thinking.
The reason is that elevating any standard, any religion, any text to the level of the sacred means that it is above any individual. Therefore, what any one individual or even society believes is of secondary importance to that which is deemed sacred. If, to cite the most obvious example, the Bible is sacred, then I have to revere it more than I revere my own feelings in assessing what is right and wrong.
But for the Left, what is right and wrong is determined by every individual’s feelings, not by anything above the individual.
This is a major reason why the Left, since Karl Marx, has been so opposed to Judeo-Christian religion. For Judaism and Christianity, God and the Bible are above the self. Indeed, Western civilization was built on the idea that the individual and society are morally accountable to God and to the moral demands of that book. That was the view, incidentally, of every one of the Founders, including deists such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
This is entirely unacceptable to the Left. As Marx and Engels said, “Man is God and God is man.” Therefore, society must rid itself of the sacred, i.e., God and the Bible. Then each of us (or the society or the party or the judiciary) takes the place of God and the Bible.
Morality is then no longer a God-given objective fact; it becomes a human-created subjective opinion. And one no longer needs to consult an external source to know right and wrong, only one’s heart. We are then no longer accountable to God for transgressions, only to ourselves.
That is why, when there is God-talk on the Left, it is usually about “the God that is within each of us,” not a God external to, let alone above, us, as Judaism and Christianity have always taught.
This explains the belief that is universally held on the Left that the Constitution is an “evolving text,” meaning that it says what anyone (on the Left) wants it to say. Conservatives, on the other hand, do not share this view. They do not believe the Constitution has something to say about everything they believe in. While the Left sees the right to abortion in the Constitution (because the Left believes in the right to abortion), those who oppose abortion do not believe that the Constitution prohibits abortion. They believe that the Constitution is silent on the issue. Precisely because the Right does believe the Constitution is to be treated as sacred, it does not claim that whatever it supports is in the Constitution or that whatever it opposes is unconstitutional.
There are humble individuals and arrogant individuals on the right and on the left. But there is no arrogance like leftist arrogance. If you hold a leftist position, you know that you are smarter, wiser, and more moral not only than conservatives, but more so than the Bible, more so than the Constitution, indeed often more so than everyone who lived before you.
Same-sex marriage is a perfect example. The fact that neither Moses nor the Hebrew Prophets, nor Jesus nor the Buddha nor any great secular humanist thinker, ever advocated defining marriage as between members of the same sex does not cause the Left to rethink its advocacy of same-sex marriage; it only proves to them how morally superior they are to Moses, Jesus, the Prophets, and everyone else who lived before them.
That is why we must to treat the Constitution as a sacred text. Because the bottom line is this: If it is not regarded as sacred, it is nothing more than what anyone believes about any social issue. Which is precisely what the Left wants it to be — providing, of course, that the “anyone” is a liberal.
For the Left, there are no sacred texts. There are only sacred (liberal) feelings.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website, dennisprager.com.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Hallowed Be thy Name
Julie Cork blogs about a wonderful gift her family received. Please go here to watch and listen to a beautiful CD.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Sara on the importance of Family and School
Seven-year-old Sara said to me this morning, "I'm glad I have a family. I'd be bored without a parent around. Children who are left alone might trash the place, and maybe even light things on fire and burn the house down! My advice to other kids is, "without a family, you are going to be bored, so GET A FAMILY!"
"If you have a family, you have somebody to talk to. I'm very talkative, and I love to get attention. People get annoyed if I talk too much. If you talk too much, you might get out of breath or fall asleep. My advice to other kids is "Find someone to talk to, but don't interrupt them if they are talking to someone else."
"Oh, and one more thing, Dad. It's the law that children have to go to school. School is what you need to learn. You need to pay attention in school, and not just mess around."
"If you have a family, you have somebody to talk to. I'm very talkative, and I love to get attention. People get annoyed if I talk too much. If you talk too much, you might get out of breath or fall asleep. My advice to other kids is "Find someone to talk to, but don't interrupt them if they are talking to someone else."
"Oh, and one more thing, Dad. It's the law that children have to go to school. School is what you need to learn. You need to pay attention in school, and not just mess around."
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Not giving in to self-pity
I wish I would have mastered the art of anger control earlier in my life. If I would have, I am convinced that my life today would be a million times better in all phases. In recent years I have learned that the biggest trap of all is self-pity. Once you give in to self-pity, you feel justified to unleash anger. Realizing this is a self-defeating activity, I pray daily for the Holy Spirit's power to overcome the temptation to give in to self-pity. I especially pray when the temptation is right on me. As Steve Martin said in his book The Pleasure of My Company, "There are many takers for the quiet heart."
One of the best gifts a parent can give his or her children is the gift of learning the importance of avoiding the temptation to give in to self-pity. This morning seven-year-old Sara was rude to ten-year-old Jon for several minutes. Finally, Jon had had enough, and came charging after Sara. Nine-year-old Greg grabbed Jon from behind, and held him back, telling Jon that if he did something to Sara, it would only make matters worse. I was so proud of Greg, and told him so clearly and emphatically.
I certainly don't claim to have mastered the ability to avoid self-pity. Anger is easier to control than self-pity, because self-pity is a thought, and anger is an action. Thoughts precede actions. It is the thoughts that we need to give priority to. If we can train ourselves to avoid the thoughts associated with self-pity, we can avoid the actions that produce results that are less than beneficial to ourselves and others.
How do we get motivated to learn to control thoughts of self-pity? There has to be some motivating factor. Impending loss of someone(s) near and dear can be a strong motivator. Job loss? Loss seems to loom large as a motivator. What has been your experience with this subject?
One of the best gifts a parent can give his or her children is the gift of learning the importance of avoiding the temptation to give in to self-pity. This morning seven-year-old Sara was rude to ten-year-old Jon for several minutes. Finally, Jon had had enough, and came charging after Sara. Nine-year-old Greg grabbed Jon from behind, and held him back, telling Jon that if he did something to Sara, it would only make matters worse. I was so proud of Greg, and told him so clearly and emphatically.
I certainly don't claim to have mastered the ability to avoid self-pity. Anger is easier to control than self-pity, because self-pity is a thought, and anger is an action. Thoughts precede actions. It is the thoughts that we need to give priority to. If we can train ourselves to avoid the thoughts associated with self-pity, we can avoid the actions that produce results that are less than beneficial to ourselves and others.
How do we get motivated to learn to control thoughts of self-pity? There has to be some motivating factor. Impending loss of someone(s) near and dear can be a strong motivator. Job loss? Loss seems to loom large as a motivator. What has been your experience with this subject?
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Live to Die
Live to Die (for virgins in the sky) BANNED by Youtube from Joe Dan on Vimeo.
Via Moonbattery
1/12/2011
UPDATE: This video was also banned by Vimeo on 1/11/2011. It is now on the Joe Dan Media site with another host. Go check it out at http://www.joedanmedia.com/ and see what all the hype is about!
Friday, January 7, 2011
Don't Quit! by ten-year-old Jon Agard
Don't quit! Go out and stand for what you believe in. If you get knocked down, get back up. There are a bunch of things that can knock you down, and one of them is life itself. Life isn't smooth sailing or driving on a paved road. It's sailing through a raging hurricane or driving on a country backroad that hasn't been groomed. Do what you think you can do. Don't let the limits of other people's imagination stop yours from growing. Take risks. They might help you excel. You might achieve your goal, and you might not, but you definitely won't if you don't take risks and try your hardest.
All I needed to know, I learned in...first grade?
"How was your day, Sara?"
"Great! Dalton was playing Ninja. He needed a girl. He trained me how to be a Ninja. You sneak up on people, flip over on the monkey bars, then run really fast."
"I also made friends with MacKenzie, after she tattled on me and tried to get me in trouble with the teacher, so I would miss out on recess. I told the teacher the real truth: that I put my pencil in Kendall's desk by accident." (I think something is missing from this story, but I'm not sure exactly what, and, anyway, Sara is already on to the next story about her school day).
"We colored our brain, heart and skeleton. I stayed in the lines, because that is exactly how our bodies are."
"Now, Daddy can we read How the Camel Got His Hump?"
"Great! Dalton was playing Ninja. He needed a girl. He trained me how to be a Ninja. You sneak up on people, flip over on the monkey bars, then run really fast."
"I also made friends with MacKenzie, after she tattled on me and tried to get me in trouble with the teacher, so I would miss out on recess. I told the teacher the real truth: that I put my pencil in Kendall's desk by accident." (I think something is missing from this story, but I'm not sure exactly what, and, anyway, Sara is already on to the next story about her school day).
"We colored our brain, heart and skeleton. I stayed in the lines, because that is exactly how our bodies are."
"Now, Daddy can we read How the Camel Got His Hump?"
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Brushing My Teeth, by ten-year-old Jon Agard
I tumbled into the treacherous bathroom. I fell to the hard, cold floor. I stopped sobbing, and the snorts of laughter from the evil torturer who forced me to call her "Mom" pierced my ears. I scampered to my feet and picked up the slime-covered toothbrush. I slopped on the toothpaste, and then I started to brush. As I finished the top row, and the tedious slick-slosh was stopping, the torturing menace gave me a great snarl and with one bony finger pointed to my bedroom. I began to wimper sadly as I slid into the creeking and cracking bed, and SMASH, I fell into a deep sleep.
A creepy news story
Did you know that there is something called the National Bed Bug Forum? I am not making this up! This is not an article from The Onion. I am citing an article in today's Denver Post, which covered the "packed" forum in Broomfield, Colorado at a fancy hotel. Did you know that in any one 180 day period of time, one female bedbug produces 7,848 adults, 69,909 eggs, 121,449 nymphs, and 169,490 bites?
Our nation is facing an "unstoppable infestation" of bedbugs. The last time our nation had such a terrible infestation, it was stopped by vigilant parents, except not my Mom and Dad, in the late 1950s. The article does not say what those other parents did to stem the tide of bed bugs, but I know who caused the nationwide infestations in the 1950s. It was MY MOTHER! I would be sitting in my favorite chair, reading my favorite book, and MY MOTHER would move my chair out of the dark part of the living room over to the big window so I would read by "God's light." The bedbugs fled my house and infested our whole nation!
Guess what has been contributing to the new infestation? IMMIGRATION! Also, you have been shopping at the Goodwill and other thrift stores way too much during this recession! You bring home more and more stuff in which the bedbugs can hide in the "dark nooks and crannies" between your stuff! They hang out there until they want to get warm, and that's where YOU come in! Once "sated" with your blood, they mate with wild abandon! These bedbugs of 2011 have genetically modified themselves, so even DDT, which used to be effective, no longer would be, even if the Democrat bureaucrats would let you spray it all over your mattress.
By the way, those are not apple seeds in your bed. They are BEDBUGS! What is the best way to get rid of them? Throw everything in your house into your dryer for fifteen minutes. It might take more than one dryer load, since you have been buying all that stuff at the thrift stores. One noted expert said it is only a matter of time before infestations will have to be treated in "homes, hotels, schools, hospitals, movie theaters, offices, college dorms, ambulances and elsewhere."
This is one area that President Obama is not touching with federal funds. It is going to have be the pest control industry, which has more than 500 operations in the U.S. A survey of pest control operators indicated that 76% of them considered bedbugs the hardest pest to eradicate. 13% cited ants, 9% cited roaches, while only a few cited termites.
You're welcome.
Our nation is facing an "unstoppable infestation" of bedbugs. The last time our nation had such a terrible infestation, it was stopped by vigilant parents, except not my Mom and Dad, in the late 1950s. The article does not say what those other parents did to stem the tide of bed bugs, but I know who caused the nationwide infestations in the 1950s. It was MY MOTHER! I would be sitting in my favorite chair, reading my favorite book, and MY MOTHER would move my chair out of the dark part of the living room over to the big window so I would read by "God's light." The bedbugs fled my house and infested our whole nation!
Guess what has been contributing to the new infestation? IMMIGRATION! Also, you have been shopping at the Goodwill and other thrift stores way too much during this recession! You bring home more and more stuff in which the bedbugs can hide in the "dark nooks and crannies" between your stuff! They hang out there until they want to get warm, and that's where YOU come in! Once "sated" with your blood, they mate with wild abandon! These bedbugs of 2011 have genetically modified themselves, so even DDT, which used to be effective, no longer would be, even if the Democrat bureaucrats would let you spray it all over your mattress.
By the way, those are not apple seeds in your bed. They are BEDBUGS! What is the best way to get rid of them? Throw everything in your house into your dryer for fifteen minutes. It might take more than one dryer load, since you have been buying all that stuff at the thrift stores. One noted expert said it is only a matter of time before infestations will have to be treated in "homes, hotels, schools, hospitals, movie theaters, offices, college dorms, ambulances and elsewhere."
This is one area that President Obama is not touching with federal funds. It is going to have be the pest control industry, which has more than 500 operations in the U.S. A survey of pest control operators indicated that 76% of them considered bedbugs the hardest pest to eradicate. 13% cited ants, 9% cited roaches, while only a few cited termites.
You're welcome.
Ace of Spades answers Democrats on the importance of the Constitution
Liberals (Democrats) are mocking Republicans for their "reverence" for the U.S. Constitution. Ace of Spades emphatically answers those critics. Here are just a few of Ace's ideas on the subject. Read the whole thing here.
"Let me tell you why I "worship" the Constitution. I do not believe it contains "all answers" within it. But I do believe it sets the ground-rules for how we shall conduct our democracy, what's in bounds, what's out of bounds, and (the biggest category) what is fair game for democratic debate; and more importantly, the precise method by which we will change these ground-rules (amendments). He who controls the rules controls the game, and it's critical in any society to have the rule-making not subject to an intellectual's whim and partisan's gamesmanship: Arguments about the rules often means the game stops being played, and as the game we are talking about is functioning, peaceful, remarkable democracy -- and an abandonment of that particular game could be catastrophic -- I'd strongly advise everyone to play by the rules as plainly specified in the rule-book and not attempt to make up new rules to advantage themselves for short-term gain.
Because this particular game is extremely important. We are blessed in America to have a politics with almost no political violence -- but that blessing isn't luck, and whether it comes from God or man, it is surely secured and maintained by the actions of man. And this constant agitation from the leftist side of things to go outside the rulebook (but only when it benefits them!) is a dangerous game.
So yeah, I think a little bit of worship is in order. To be honest, it matters less what the specific rules are than the rules, whatever they are, be scrupulously followed by all. To do otherwise is to treat a peaceful, stable democracy as if it's something we should take for granted, which can never devolve into blood and evil.
Look around the world; it's the peaceful, stable, respectful democracies which are the exception and the rule of blood and hate which is the rule. There's nothing that says it has to stay that way.
We all know what the rulebook says the rules are. The amendment process is not unclear. So yes, let's maybe be a little reverential about observing the rules that have kept this a functioning, peaceful democracy for 230 years."
How the Holy Spirit works
Right after I saw the man I wrote about in the post below, I found somebody's wallet on the floor. It was chocked full of stuff, and although I didn't open it, I saw that there was money in it. I took it to a manager in Customer Service. About an hour later the owner of the wallet came up to me and thanked me. You could tell he had been really worried. He offered to buy me dinner. I joked that he didn't need to do that, since I had already taken $25.00 out of it as a reward. He laughed right away and said he knew that wan't true, since he didn't have $25.00 in it (Whew). Sometimes my outrageous sense of humor almost gets me in trouble!
They do it for us.
Yesterday, where I work, I saw a man walking. He looked to be in excruciating pain. I asked him about it. He said he was trying to get used to a prosthesis. His entire leg had been blown off in Afghanistan. He told me he just came from the V.A. hospital, and he does not want to go back, because he has one bad experience after another with the bureaucrats there. He said he is a Marine stationed at Fort Carson near Colorado Springs.
But he did not want to talk about his problems. He wanted to tell the store manager how helpful one of our employees had been to him. I wrote down the name and number of our store manager and gave it to him. I thanked him humbly for his service, choking back tears, and wished him help from God in his recovery process. He left with a smile and his head up.
But he did not want to talk about his problems. He wanted to tell the store manager how helpful one of our employees had been to him. I wrote down the name and number of our store manager and gave it to him. I thanked him humbly for his service, choking back tears, and wished him help from God in his recovery process. He left with a smile and his head up.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
News of the day
Always carry your camera with you. You just never know when you might get to take a pic like this one.
Via iOwnTheWorld
Via iOwnTheWorld
Another under the bus
Apparently Robert Gibbs resigned as White House Press Secretary today. Innominatus has the inside scoop here.
This is a day to celebrate!
For those of us who have been waiting for this day, I say, CONGRATULATIONS!
We did it!
WooooHoooo!
We are the Champions!
Hi ho, the wicked witch is...GONE!
Yes!
Yes!
Take that! A great big gavel in your liberal punk face!
Speaker Boehner, in da House!!
Taxed Enough Already has become Taken Everything Away from Pelosi!
How do you like this party, Nancy?!
Lame-stream media won't let Conservatives celebrate,
but they don't control the Blogosphere, be-otches!
And here's a huge WOOOHOOO to all those Governors and state legislators being sworn in around these times!! Whole lotta RED on that map! Yeah!
Tax and spend has seen it's END!!!
OK, I feel a LOT better!
Did I mention that Queen Rahm Emmanuel and Prince Robert Gibbs are gone!
Oh yeah, a good day, a good day.
Now back to work, you pajama wearin' slackers, we've got a world to change!
Boehner Elected House Speaker, Takes Gavel From Pelosi
In an emotionally charged moment during the opening act of the 112th Congress, a teary-eyed John Boehner of Ohio, took the gavel from Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, officially becoming the 61st House speaker.
In his speech to fellow lawmakers, Boehner vowed to give the government back to the people, renew focus on the Constitution and provide transparency, honest and accountability.
"Hard work and tough decisions will be required of the 112th Congress," he said. "No longer can we fall short. No longer can we kick the can down the road. The people voted to end business as usual and today we begin to carry out their instructions."
Lawmakers voted for Boehner as House speaker with 241 of 242 Republican votes. However, outgoing Pelosi faced a minor revolt from several of the 193 Democrats now in the minority.
While it's traditional for the minority to vote its leader as speaker, even on the assumption the leader will lose, Pelosi was not the choice of 19 lawmakers. It was the largest number of defections for any formal candidate for speaker since January 1997 when nine Republicans voted against House Speaker Newt Gingrich. At that time, four voted for another member and five members voted present.
via; Fox News
Gibbs to Step Down as Obama Spokesman Amid White House Shakeup
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is stepping down as the chief spokesman for the White House to become an outside adviser to the president and his re-election campaign, Fox News has confirmed.
No successor has been immediately named. But Gibbs told The New York Times, which first reported the departure, that a replacement will likely be announced within the next two weeks.
Gibbs' departure from the briefing room podium is part of a broader shakeup in President Obama's senior leadership team as the White House pivots to deal with a new era of divided power in Washington.
Gibbs will leave after Obama delivers his State of the Union address at the end of this month, a senior administration official told Fox News. While Gibbs will no longer be the face of the administration, he will still be giving speeches on behalf of the president and making TV appearances.
Via: Fox News
Don't believe the spin here, folks. This is a melt down. - Cliff
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
New ads aimed at teens
Warning: I apologize if anyone finds this video offensive. I salute The Onion, though, for satire that is cutting edge and fearless. Find it here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82x9pzHkHK4
Barack getting advice from Michael Vick?
Another candidate for Michael Steele's job
Poor Michael Steele. It seems that every week someone is wanting to oust him from his chairmanship of the Republican Party. Even Frank J. of IMAO is getting into the act. He actually has a pretty good platform. Check it out here.
Joe Biden saves the day!
Have you heard about the traumatic brain injury suffered by President Obama? Man, that guy is in a stressful situation, even in his own cabinet meetings!
Applying words of songs to our own lives
Trinka posted these thoughts on her blog A little accountability.
* Silent Night: Has God brought special direction or answers in the silence of a long, sleepless night?
* Joy to the World: Has your heart ever been so full of joy that you felt like shouting it to the world?
* O Come, All Ye Faithful: Have God's "faithful ones" been there for you in a time of great need?
* God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen: When has God brought a supernatural peace into your life?
* Go Tell it on the Mountain: Tell about a time when you felt led to share the good news.
* Winter Wonderland: Share a time when you were overwhelmed by the beauty of a winter scene.
* Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: Relate a Christmas that was meager with little resources, but became a blessing.
* Let it Snow: Describe a meaningful "snowed in" experience
* O Come Emmanuel: When did God's presence shine through after desperate cries for help? inka at A little accountability posted these thoughts on her blog:
* Silent Night: Has God brought special direction or answers in the silence of a long, sleepless night?
* Joy to the World: Has your heart ever been so full of joy that you felt like shouting it to the world?
* O Come, All Ye Faithful: Have God's "faithful ones" been there for you in a time of great need?
* God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen: When has God brought a supernatural peace into your life?
* Go Tell it on the Mountain: Tell about a time when you felt led to share the good news.
* Winter Wonderland: Share a time when you were overwhelmed by the beauty of a winter scene.
* Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: Relate a Christmas that was meager with little resources, but became a blessing.
* Let it Snow: Describe a meaningful "snowed in" experience
* O Come Emmanuel: When did God's presence shine through after desperate cries for help? inka at A little accountability posted these thoughts on her blog:
Dennis Prager: From Yale to the NFL
From Yale to the NFL
Are we still the home of the brave?
Last week, the National Football League called off a game because it was going to snow in Philadelphia. This has not happened before. American football is played under all weather conditions. That is part of its appeal. Snow, rain, freezing temperatures — nothing stops an NFL game.
But last Sunday, the NFL and Philadelphia city officials called off the Eagles–Vikings game because of an imminent snowstorm — in order to protect fans from having to drive at that time.
Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, wrote a scathing column for the Washington Times indicting those who called off the game. He described it as an example of the “wussification” of America.
He was right.
Sadly, this risk-averse/avoid-pain mindset is overtaking America. Anything that entails risk is to be avoided and, when possible, banned. The breast-cancer drug Avastin has just been banned by the FDA because of a side-effect risk. Yet terminally ill breast cancer patients who understand the risks have begged to be allowed to take the drug (even Europe allows it). Peanuts and peanut butter, particularly good sources of protein for kids (because kids actually like and therefore eat peanuts and peanut butter), are banned in more and more schools because of the risk (which is far less than that of being killed by lightning) that peanut-allergic students may die in schools that do not ban peanuts. Desperately needed nuclear power plants are shelved because of the infinitesimally small risk of nuclear-waste-radiation leakage. And now an NFL game is canceled because of the risk that some fans might get into auto accidents in a snowstorm.
Americans are becoming increasingly risk-averse.
Though Governor Rendell is a Democrat, this risk aversion comes from the Left, which has made it its mission to protect people from risk. Risk may lead to pain, and the Left dreams of a pain-free life.
The most left-wing institutions in America, our universities, are therefore the most pain- and risk-averse. That is the reason for speech codes on campuses: No student should have his or her feelings hurt or ever feel “offended.” Likewise, no Christmas trees are allowed lest a non-Christian student feel not included.
That is why Yale University Press last year decided at the last minute to cancel inclusion of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in the book it was about to publish about the Danish Muhammad cartoons! Too risky. The liberal university now stands for avoiding pain much more than for freedom of speech.
I have a sad confession to make. Whenever I hear or sing the National Anthem, I no longer fully believe its ending — “o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” We have many freedom loving and brave Americans — just think of those in the armed forces. But overall, risk has been banned as Americans seek to be immunized against pain.
Needless to say, the liberal Philadelphia Inquirer supported the decision to cancel the football game. And so did some of my callers who think of themselves as conservative. But all those self-identified conservative callers who supported the decision were, I noted on air, under the age of 40.
I explained to them that they have grown up in a different America than I did. The idea of telling an American that a pro-football game is canceled because he might drive in bad weather strikes a conservative over 40 as demeaning. But the young have been raised without monkey bars, dodgeball, or see-saws lest they fall and hurt themselves, and without “Merry Christmas” lest it offend; protected by parents and schools from experiencing the pain of a loss in sports; told they are wonderful when they are not; and otherwise weakened to the point where it seems perfectly natural to cancel a football game because fans may drive in bad weather.
A listener who disagreed with me sent me an e-mail asking how I would feel if my father drove to that game and died in an accident because emergency vehicles could not reach him in time. I responded by giving my correspondent my father’s e-mail address. I told him that I suspected that my father, who is a healthy 92 and fought for three years in World War II, would probably respond that he doesn’t recognize the America of today as the one he fought for 65 years ago.
That’s why the cancellations by the NFL and Yale University are important. Once the home of the brave, America is becoming the home of the risk-averse and the pain-avoiders. And when you are risk-averse you are not only less brave, you are less free. With freedom comes pain, a price more and more Americans don’t want to pay.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website, dennisprager.com.
from National Review Online
Are we still the home of the brave?
Last week, the National Football League called off a game because it was going to snow in Philadelphia. This has not happened before. American football is played under all weather conditions. That is part of its appeal. Snow, rain, freezing temperatures — nothing stops an NFL game.
But last Sunday, the NFL and Philadelphia city officials called off the Eagles–Vikings game because of an imminent snowstorm — in order to protect fans from having to drive at that time.
Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, wrote a scathing column for the Washington Times indicting those who called off the game. He described it as an example of the “wussification” of America.
He was right.
Sadly, this risk-averse/avoid-pain mindset is overtaking America. Anything that entails risk is to be avoided and, when possible, banned. The breast-cancer drug Avastin has just been banned by the FDA because of a side-effect risk. Yet terminally ill breast cancer patients who understand the risks have begged to be allowed to take the drug (even Europe allows it). Peanuts and peanut butter, particularly good sources of protein for kids (because kids actually like and therefore eat peanuts and peanut butter), are banned in more and more schools because of the risk (which is far less than that of being killed by lightning) that peanut-allergic students may die in schools that do not ban peanuts. Desperately needed nuclear power plants are shelved because of the infinitesimally small risk of nuclear-waste-radiation leakage. And now an NFL game is canceled because of the risk that some fans might get into auto accidents in a snowstorm.
Americans are becoming increasingly risk-averse.
Though Governor Rendell is a Democrat, this risk aversion comes from the Left, which has made it its mission to protect people from risk. Risk may lead to pain, and the Left dreams of a pain-free life.
The most left-wing institutions in America, our universities, are therefore the most pain- and risk-averse. That is the reason for speech codes on campuses: No student should have his or her feelings hurt or ever feel “offended.” Likewise, no Christmas trees are allowed lest a non-Christian student feel not included.
That is why Yale University Press last year decided at the last minute to cancel inclusion of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad in the book it was about to publish about the Danish Muhammad cartoons! Too risky. The liberal university now stands for avoiding pain much more than for freedom of speech.
I have a sad confession to make. Whenever I hear or sing the National Anthem, I no longer fully believe its ending — “o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” We have many freedom loving and brave Americans — just think of those in the armed forces. But overall, risk has been banned as Americans seek to be immunized against pain.
Needless to say, the liberal Philadelphia Inquirer supported the decision to cancel the football game. And so did some of my callers who think of themselves as conservative. But all those self-identified conservative callers who supported the decision were, I noted on air, under the age of 40.
I explained to them that they have grown up in a different America than I did. The idea of telling an American that a pro-football game is canceled because he might drive in bad weather strikes a conservative over 40 as demeaning. But the young have been raised without monkey bars, dodgeball, or see-saws lest they fall and hurt themselves, and without “Merry Christmas” lest it offend; protected by parents and schools from experiencing the pain of a loss in sports; told they are wonderful when they are not; and otherwise weakened to the point where it seems perfectly natural to cancel a football game because fans may drive in bad weather.
A listener who disagreed with me sent me an e-mail asking how I would feel if my father drove to that game and died in an accident because emergency vehicles could not reach him in time. I responded by giving my correspondent my father’s e-mail address. I told him that I suspected that my father, who is a healthy 92 and fought for three years in World War II, would probably respond that he doesn’t recognize the America of today as the one he fought for 65 years ago.
That’s why the cancellations by the NFL and Yale University are important. Once the home of the brave, America is becoming the home of the risk-averse and the pain-avoiders. And when you are risk-averse you are not only less brave, you are less free. With freedom comes pain, a price more and more Americans don’t want to pay.
— Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website, dennisprager.com.
from National Review Online
Sunday, January 2, 2011
The true story of Santa Claus
Not to be outdone by their sister, (please see previous post below) Jon and Greg (ages ten and nine) put their heads together and put on a rather elaborate play, featuring 8 scenes, with numerous costume and role changes. Without further adieu, here is The True Story of Santa Claus.
Scene One: A baby is born to Mrs.Claus (Greg). The lyrics are all about what to name the baby. Naturally, they agree on "Santa."
Scene Two: Santa Claus is five years old. It is the year 1440. Santa's mother (Greg in a dress) comes into his room and finds him smoking a pipe. When she demands to know why he is smoking a pipe, Santa (Jon) replies, "It's the style of the forties, Dude."
Scene Three: Santa Claus is now ten years old. He is eating a huge pile of junk food.
Mother (Greg) confronts Santa, "What are you becoming, Santa?
It's a failure to call you my son!" Santa, with his mouth full of candy and drinking a Sprite, mumbles this pitiful excuse, "It's good to be an only child!"
Scene Four: Santa is still ten years old. Greg is now Santa Claus. Jon is a mutant bunny rabbit. "I was sent by God to cast a spell on you, because you have been a bad boy. You are now obese! Fear not, God has decided to be merciful to you. You will be sentenced to go to the North Pole. Every year on December 25 you will deliver toys to all the children of the world. You will have a selection of Elves to help you make all the toys."
Greg (Santa) replies, "So you're going to torture me?"
Jon (messenger from God) answers, "Yes, well that is the bad news. The good news is that because I am casting a spell over you, you won't ever die."
Scene Five: Now Santa (Jon) is "an old geezer" 700 years later. Greg is Head Elf, shouting at the other elves to "get working!" He apologizes to Santa for the poor toy production. Santa is overwhelmed by a huge stack of letters from children. He becomes out-of-sorts and starts screaming at Head Elf for the lack of production from the elves.
Scene Six: Santa is burning all the letters. He failed to notice that one was from a "snotty rich kid" who threatened to kill Santa if he did not receive a powerful Tommygun for Christmas.
Scene Seven: (Major action scene of the play) Greg and Jon are elves making toys. Greg complains, "I hate this job: It is the day after Christmas, and we are already making toys for next Christmas!" Jon agrees, saying "No one gives us any credit. Santa gets all the credit. We don't even get paid!" Jon is interrupted by a large BOOM! It is the "sadistic rich kid, armed with the latest Nerf gun from Walmart. He disguises himself as an elf, and kills one of the elves, before demanding to know where he can find Santa. At first Jon refuses to tell him, but then he remembers that the elves are making all the toys, and Santa is getting all the credit, and he tells the kid he can find Santa on the 47th floor in his office.
Scene Eight: Santa Claus is going over the events of the previous day. It was not pretty. The sleigh had broken down, and Rudolph had died a tragic death when his mercury-filled Obama light bulb exploded just after take-off (Hey, I am the blogger here; I can add whatever touches I want to this script)! Greg (playing the kid with the Nerf gun, mows down Santa (Jon), saying, "so you think you cannot die of old age. Well, maybe not, but I can shoot you!"
The narrator (Jon) then comes forward wearing one of my old suits. "And that is the true story of the sad ending of Santa Claus. The sadistic kid took over the North Pole, and all the elves were kept busy making toys only for him. There will be no more Christmases." Just then the sadistic kid (Greg) mows down the narrator, to give the play a happy ending.
Scene One: A baby is born to Mrs.Claus (Greg). The lyrics are all about what to name the baby. Naturally, they agree on "Santa."
Scene Two: Santa Claus is five years old. It is the year 1440. Santa's mother (Greg in a dress) comes into his room and finds him smoking a pipe. When she demands to know why he is smoking a pipe, Santa (Jon) replies, "It's the style of the forties, Dude."
Scene Three: Santa Claus is now ten years old. He is eating a huge pile of junk food.
Mother (Greg) confronts Santa, "What are you becoming, Santa?
It's a failure to call you my son!" Santa, with his mouth full of candy and drinking a Sprite, mumbles this pitiful excuse, "It's good to be an only child!"
Scene Four: Santa is still ten years old. Greg is now Santa Claus. Jon is a mutant bunny rabbit. "I was sent by God to cast a spell on you, because you have been a bad boy. You are now obese! Fear not, God has decided to be merciful to you. You will be sentenced to go to the North Pole. Every year on December 25 you will deliver toys to all the children of the world. You will have a selection of Elves to help you make all the toys."
Greg (Santa) replies, "So you're going to torture me?"
Jon (messenger from God) answers, "Yes, well that is the bad news. The good news is that because I am casting a spell over you, you won't ever die."
Scene Five: Now Santa (Jon) is "an old geezer" 700 years later. Greg is Head Elf, shouting at the other elves to "get working!" He apologizes to Santa for the poor toy production. Santa is overwhelmed by a huge stack of letters from children. He becomes out-of-sorts and starts screaming at Head Elf for the lack of production from the elves.
Scene Six: Santa is burning all the letters. He failed to notice that one was from a "snotty rich kid" who threatened to kill Santa if he did not receive a powerful Tommygun for Christmas.
Scene Seven: (Major action scene of the play) Greg and Jon are elves making toys. Greg complains, "I hate this job: It is the day after Christmas, and we are already making toys for next Christmas!" Jon agrees, saying "No one gives us any credit. Santa gets all the credit. We don't even get paid!" Jon is interrupted by a large BOOM! It is the "sadistic rich kid, armed with the latest Nerf gun from Walmart. He disguises himself as an elf, and kills one of the elves, before demanding to know where he can find Santa. At first Jon refuses to tell him, but then he remembers that the elves are making all the toys, and Santa is getting all the credit, and he tells the kid he can find Santa on the 47th floor in his office.
Scene Eight: Santa Claus is going over the events of the previous day. It was not pretty. The sleigh had broken down, and Rudolph had died a tragic death when his mercury-filled Obama light bulb exploded just after take-off (Hey, I am the blogger here; I can add whatever touches I want to this script)! Greg (playing the kid with the Nerf gun, mows down Santa (Jon), saying, "so you think you cannot die of old age. Well, maybe not, but I can shoot you!"
The narrator (Jon) then comes forward wearing one of my old suits. "And that is the true story of the sad ending of Santa Claus. The sadistic kid took over the North Pole, and all the elves were kept busy making toys only for him. There will be no more Christmases." Just then the sadistic kid (Greg) mows down the narrator, to give the play a happy ending.
A Christmas play (better late than never)
Tonight the three younger children were ready for me when I came home from work. First, Sara put on a show featuring original lyrics, (and how!) singing and dancing. In the middle of the performance Greg came over to me and whispered, "Is this supposed to be the Nativity?" He asked that because the lyrics featured the baby Jesus, cats, chickens, dogs, and a turkey. One of the cats became a pony. One line I remember: "Jesus was born with lovely hair, and He can wear underwear." A "big, fat Monster" took off the horse's head, which became a worm.
No worries. The next scene was "Here come the angels nice and small, sitting in a tree." Next came the beautiful Princess who happily lived with the King of Birth."
In the next scene, darkness covers the Earth, and Mrs. Meaniehead arrives on stage. "I'm a good girl, but people say I'm mean, that I just care about me, me, me!" "Then came the final gift of death: the world is horrible and my mean little kitten hisses."
At this point the boys had had enough, and tried to disrupt the performance. Undaunted, Sara warned, "If you get in this room, and you are a little boy, you will be kissed, and you'll turn into a little fat frog. Then you'll turn into a little tiny woman, and my cat will eat you up! And that's the end of the world!"
Next scene: "Here comes the beautiful Princess of Love. Kiss her nice. There is no such thing as a fairy, so they'll fly away and Santa Claus will bring you presents if you've been good, loving, and sharing." "Welcome everyone. It's Christmas time. The party is just beginning. Can't you see these lovely reed flutes?"
No worries. The next scene was "Here come the angels nice and small, sitting in a tree." Next came the beautiful Princess who happily lived with the King of Birth."
In the next scene, darkness covers the Earth, and Mrs. Meaniehead arrives on stage. "I'm a good girl, but people say I'm mean, that I just care about me, me, me!" "Then came the final gift of death: the world is horrible and my mean little kitten hisses."
At this point the boys had had enough, and tried to disrupt the performance. Undaunted, Sara warned, "If you get in this room, and you are a little boy, you will be kissed, and you'll turn into a little fat frog. Then you'll turn into a little tiny woman, and my cat will eat you up! And that's the end of the world!"
Next scene: "Here comes the beautiful Princess of Love. Kiss her nice. There is no such thing as a fairy, so they'll fly away and Santa Claus will bring you presents if you've been good, loving, and sharing." "Welcome everyone. It's Christmas time. The party is just beginning. Can't you see these lovely reed flutes?"
Saturday, January 1, 2011
2010 statistics on Airport screening from the Department of Homeland Security
Terrorist Plots Discovered 0
Transvestites 133
Hernias 1,485
Hemorrhoid Cases 3,172
Enlarged Prostates 8,249
Breast Implants 59,350
Natural Blondes 3
Via Theo Sparks
Transvestites 133
Hernias 1,485
Hemorrhoid Cases 3,172
Enlarged Prostates 8,249
Breast Implants 59,350
Natural Blondes 3
Via Theo Sparks
Let us not forget...
As the newly elected Congresspersons prepare to move in to their new digs, let us not forget the Congresspersons and their staffs who are now being displaced. Iowahawk has some very thorough and helpful suggestions, including assessing your skills and competencies, familiarizing yourself with your new industry, getting the skills you need, finding job openings, preparing your resume, the job interview, and going on public assistance.
Getting a "head start on future tax obligations"
Did you know that more and more financial planners are setting up offices in day care centers in order to explain to children "the need to invest a portion of their allowances in flexible foreign funds?" "Kids need to get a head start on their payment obligations these days," said one center worker. "So it only makes sense to add a review of future tax obligations to the mix of activities day care centers have to offer."
Via Op-Toons Review
Protect us from our protectors!
Can't get legislation through Congress? No worries, the Obama administration just issues new regulations to grab more power for the government. Can't get an appointment through Congress? No worries, just wait till Congress is in recess, and appoint whomever you want to fill vacancies (new deputy attorney general and new U.S. Ambassador to Syria).
But wait, there is something called the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn regulatory agency orders with a simple majority in the House and Senate. New internet regulations issued on the eve of Christmas Eve, other regulations being issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and others, should give Republicans lots of opportunities to protect us from our protectors during these next two years of Obama's Presidency.
But wait, there is something called the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn regulatory agency orders with a simple majority in the House and Senate. New internet regulations issued on the eve of Christmas Eve, other regulations being issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and others, should give Republicans lots of opportunities to protect us from our protectors during these next two years of Obama's Presidency.
VIctor Davis Hanson: The American 21st Century
America’s rivals lack the culture necessary to sustain greatness.
The current debt, recession, wars, and political infighting have depressed Americans into thinking their country soon will be overtaken by more vigorous rivals abroad. Yet this is an American fear as old as it is improbable.
In the 1930s, the Great Depression supposedly marked the end of freewheeling American capitalism. The 1950s were caricatured as a period of mindless American conformity, McCarthyism, and obsequious company men.
By the late 1960s, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., along with the Vietnam War, had fueled a hippie counterculture that purportedly was going to replace a toxic American establishment. In the 1970s, oil shocks, gas lines, Watergate, and new rustbelts were said to be symptomatic of a post-industrial, has-been America.
At the same time, other nations, we were typically told, were doing far better.
In the late 1940s, with the rise of a postwar Soviet Union that had crushed Hitler’s Wehrmacht on the eastern front during World War II, Communism promised a New Man as it swept through Eastern Europe.
Mao Zedong took power in China and inspired Communist revolutions from North Korea to Cuba. Statist central planning was going to replace the unfairness and inefficiency of Western-style capitalism. Yet just a half-century later, Communism had either imploded or been superseded in most of the world.
By the early 1980s, Japan’s state capitalism along with emphasis on the group rather than the individual was being touted as the ideal balance between the public and private sectors. Japan Inc. continually outpaced the growth of the American economy. Then, in the 1990s, a real-estate bubble and a lack of fiscal transparency led to a collapse of property prices and a general recession. A shrinking and aging Japanese population, led by a secretive government, has been struggling ever since to recover the old magic.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the European Union was hailed as the proper Western paradigm of the future. The euro soared over the dollar. Europe practiced a sophisticated “soft power,” while American cowboyism was derided for getting us into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Civilized cradle-to-grave benefits were contrasted with the frontier, every-man-for-himself American system.
Now Europe limps from crisis to crisis. Its undemocratic union, coupled with socialist entitlements, is proving unsustainable. Symptoms of the ossified European system appear in everything from a shrinking population and a growing atheism to an inability to integrate Muslim immigrants or field a credible military.
As we enter this new decade, we are being lectured that China is soon to be the global colossus. Its economy is now second only to America’s, but with a far faster rate of growth and with budget surpluses rather than debt. Few seem to mention that China’s mounting social tensions, mercantilism, environmental degradation, and state bosses belong more to a 19th- than a 21st-century nation.
Amid all this doom and gloom, two factors are constant over the decades. First, America goes through periodic bouts of neurotic self-doubt, only to wake up and snap out of it. Indeed, indebted Americans are already bracing for fiscal restraint and parsimony as an antidote to past profligacy.
Second, decline is relative and does not occur in a vacuum. As Western economic and scientific values ripple out from Europe and the United States, it is understandable that developing countries like China, India, and Brazil can catapult right into the 21st century. But that said, national strength is still measured by the underlying hardiness of the patient — its demography, culture, and institutions — rather than by occasional symptoms of ill health.
In that regard, America integrates immigrants and assimilates races and ethnicities in a way Europe cannot. Russia, China, and Japan are simply not culturally equipped to deal with millions who do not look Slavic, Chinese, or Japanese. The Islamic world cannot ensure religious parity to Christians, Jews, or Hindus — or political equality to women.
The American Constitution has been tested over 223 years. In contrast, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea have constitutional pedigrees of not much more than 60 years. The last time Americans killed each other in large numbers was nearly a century and a half ago; most of our rivals have seen millions of their own destroyed in civil strife and internecine warring just this past century.
In short, a nation’s health is gauged not by bouts of recession and self-doubt, but by the durability of its political, economic, military, and social foundations. A temporarily ill-seeming America is nevertheless still growing, stable, multiethnic, transparent, individualistic, self-critical, and meritocratic; almost all of its apparently healthy rivals, by contrast, are not.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.
from National Review Online
The current debt, recession, wars, and political infighting have depressed Americans into thinking their country soon will be overtaken by more vigorous rivals abroad. Yet this is an American fear as old as it is improbable.
In the 1930s, the Great Depression supposedly marked the end of freewheeling American capitalism. The 1950s were caricatured as a period of mindless American conformity, McCarthyism, and obsequious company men.
By the late 1960s, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., along with the Vietnam War, had fueled a hippie counterculture that purportedly was going to replace a toxic American establishment. In the 1970s, oil shocks, gas lines, Watergate, and new rustbelts were said to be symptomatic of a post-industrial, has-been America.
At the same time, other nations, we were typically told, were doing far better.
In the late 1940s, with the rise of a postwar Soviet Union that had crushed Hitler’s Wehrmacht on the eastern front during World War II, Communism promised a New Man as it swept through Eastern Europe.
Mao Zedong took power in China and inspired Communist revolutions from North Korea to Cuba. Statist central planning was going to replace the unfairness and inefficiency of Western-style capitalism. Yet just a half-century later, Communism had either imploded or been superseded in most of the world.
By the early 1980s, Japan’s state capitalism along with emphasis on the group rather than the individual was being touted as the ideal balance between the public and private sectors. Japan Inc. continually outpaced the growth of the American economy. Then, in the 1990s, a real-estate bubble and a lack of fiscal transparency led to a collapse of property prices and a general recession. A shrinking and aging Japanese population, led by a secretive government, has been struggling ever since to recover the old magic.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the European Union was hailed as the proper Western paradigm of the future. The euro soared over the dollar. Europe practiced a sophisticated “soft power,” while American cowboyism was derided for getting us into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Civilized cradle-to-grave benefits were contrasted with the frontier, every-man-for-himself American system.
Now Europe limps from crisis to crisis. Its undemocratic union, coupled with socialist entitlements, is proving unsustainable. Symptoms of the ossified European system appear in everything from a shrinking population and a growing atheism to an inability to integrate Muslim immigrants or field a credible military.
As we enter this new decade, we are being lectured that China is soon to be the global colossus. Its economy is now second only to America’s, but with a far faster rate of growth and with budget surpluses rather than debt. Few seem to mention that China’s mounting social tensions, mercantilism, environmental degradation, and state bosses belong more to a 19th- than a 21st-century nation.
Amid all this doom and gloom, two factors are constant over the decades. First, America goes through periodic bouts of neurotic self-doubt, only to wake up and snap out of it. Indeed, indebted Americans are already bracing for fiscal restraint and parsimony as an antidote to past profligacy.
Second, decline is relative and does not occur in a vacuum. As Western economic and scientific values ripple out from Europe and the United States, it is understandable that developing countries like China, India, and Brazil can catapult right into the 21st century. But that said, national strength is still measured by the underlying hardiness of the patient — its demography, culture, and institutions — rather than by occasional symptoms of ill health.
In that regard, America integrates immigrants and assimilates races and ethnicities in a way Europe cannot. Russia, China, and Japan are simply not culturally equipped to deal with millions who do not look Slavic, Chinese, or Japanese. The Islamic world cannot ensure religious parity to Christians, Jews, or Hindus — or political equality to women.
The American Constitution has been tested over 223 years. In contrast, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, and South Korea have constitutional pedigrees of not much more than 60 years. The last time Americans killed each other in large numbers was nearly a century and a half ago; most of our rivals have seen millions of their own destroyed in civil strife and internecine warring just this past century.
In short, a nation’s health is gauged not by bouts of recession and self-doubt, but by the durability of its political, economic, military, and social foundations. A temporarily ill-seeming America is nevertheless still growing, stable, multiethnic, transparent, individualistic, self-critical, and meritocratic; almost all of its apparently healthy rivals, by contrast, are not.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.
from National Review Online
Friday, December 31, 2010
No, stay on the highway!
Our son Thomas recently passed his Commercial Driver's License. I better not show this picture to his mother.
Via Woodsterman
Guess who is running for mayor of Chicago?
The following was written by Basil, a guy who is a contributing blogger at IMAO.
« BTW «» Random Thoughts »By the way, I’m running for mayor of Chicago, too
Posted by Basil on December 28, 2010 at 8:02 am
Did you miss the news the other day?
The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners ruled that former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is a Chicago resident and can run for mayor.
Part of the problem is that Emanuel doesn’t actually live in Chicago. Hasn’t for a couple of years. He says he’s paid taxes there. And that whole selling his house thing? He wasn’t really selling it.
The Board, in true Chicago style, said that as long as Emanuel was planning on going back, he was a resident.
Which brings me to my point: I’ve been to Chicago. Spent days there. Drove the roads and paid the tolls … which are road taxes. Even been to a White Sox game. And plan to go back to see a Cubs game at Wrigley.
Like Rahm Emanuel, I’ve been to Chicago, paid taxes there, and plan to go back.
Therefore, I am a Chicago resident.
So, I’m running for mayor, too.
And, since it’s Chicago, I want everyone to register so you can vote for me. I mean, it’s Chicago. Dead people vote there all the time. I don’t see why being alive should disqualify you. Just tell them you’re a Democrat. That should cut through any red tape.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I’m elected mayor of Chicago. I suppose I should think up some campaign promises or something. I mean, it’s what people running for office do, right?
Here are some of the things I’ve come up with:
Rename US Cellular Field to Cominskey Park.
Daily contests between Lou Malnati’s and Pizzeria Uno’s for best Original Chicago Style Pizza.
Every holiday gets a massacre. St. Valentine’s Day has ridden that gravy train for too long!
Oprah has to give cars to everybody.
Lake Michigan is renamed Happy Fun Lake and is declared off-limits to Canada.
I’m looking for more ideas. When I’m elected mayor, I’ll have jobs for everyone who submits ideas and otherwise contributes to the campaign. As mayor of Chicago, I’ll be able to do that.
Barry's Hawaiian vacation, and a superhero from the north
Apparently our President is on vacation in Hawaii. Be careful out there, Mr. President.
Via Andy's Place
Via Andy's Place
New Rules for Congress
John Boehner, expected to be the new Speaker of the House, has announced new rules. The Constitution will be read (I am not clear whether this is to be done every day or just one time at the beginning of the new session of Congress), and all new bills must be shown by the author of the new legislation to be linked to the Constitiution. It sounds great, but is there any doubt we need to hold their feet to the fire?
Our Dumb World
Want more than just a chuckle? Try reading The Onion's Our Dumb World, The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth. This book travels to all corners of our globe with magnificent satirical descriptions of all the countries. You should avoid this book if you can't stand a satire that includes the United States, or if you are offended by the "f-word." No country escapes the withering satire of The Onion's writers. There is a part of me that would love to write for The Onion.
Michael Barone: A Truce in Culture Wars as Voters Focus on Economy
Mitch Daniels’s proposal is already a fact of life.
Back in June, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who many think would be an attractive 2012 presidential candidate, was quoted by Andrew Ferguson in The Weekly Standard as saying the next president “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues.”
That quickly attracted some harsh criticism from opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage. But Daniels has declined to back down, telling the Indianapolis Star the other day that such issues are secondary to the economy and foreign policy.
I think both Daniels and his critics have missed the point. The fact is that there is an ongoing truce on the social issues, because for most Americans they have been overshadowed by concerns raised by the weak economy and the Barack Obama Democrats’ vast increase in the size and scope of government.
Those with strong positions on both sides of the abortion and gay-rights issues don’t like to hear that. They base their views on strongly held moral beliefs that are intellectually defensible and not vicious in character.
And for more than a decade, they had gotten used to a politics in which the demographic variable most highly correlated with voting behavior was religion, or degree of religiosity, and in which positions on abortion were very highly correlated with partisan preference.
Our politics in the years from 1995 to 2005 or so was like a culture war between two approximately equal-sized armies fighting it out over small bits of terrain that made the difference between victory and defeat. In that context, abortion and other cultural issues were litmus tests in the contests for both parties’ presidential nominations.
I don’t think that’s likely to be the case in the future. You don’t hear potential contenders for the 2012 Republican nomination talking about cultural issues very much. And the intramural arguments among Democrats are over things like tax cuts for the rich and the public option in the health-care bill.
Even as economics is overshadowing all else, we seem to have reached a truce in the culture wars because important issues have been settled as a practical matter.
Abortion remains controversial. But we are not going to see abortion criminalized, not in a country where the Supreme Court has been ruling for 37 years that it’s a right.
At the same time, we are seeing abortion disfavored and restricted by state laws that are widely popular and have at least in some cases been upheld by the courts. Polls show that young voters, liberal on most cultural issues, have slightly more negative views on abortion than their elders.
On gay rights, we also see something in the nature of a truce. Polls suggest majority support for Congress’s repeal of the ban on open gays in the military, and the Marine Corps commandant, who opposed the change, promised to work hard to implement it.
Same-sex marriage is accepted in Massachusetts and nearly gained majority support in referenda in Maine and California. But many states have passed constitutional amendments banning it. It is unlikely to pass muster with voters or legislators in most of the South anytime soon, if only because most black voters are opposed (blacks voted 70 percent against it in California).
There’s a sharp difference between old and young voters on same-sex marriage, and my guess is that young voters will continue to favor it by wide margins as they grow older — but maybe not. In the meantime, discrimination against or disparagement of gays and lesbians is increasingly frowned on by larger and larger majorities.
American history is a long chronicle of, among other things, people with different views on religious and cultural issues living in more or less close and amicable proximity with one another. Sometimes that’s hard, when government faces binary issues (should abortion be legal?) that must be decided one way or the other.
But on the cultural issues that have been the focus of political contention, we seem to have reached a status quo that, while not acceptable to some with strong views on both sides, is one most Americans can live with. The truce that Mitch Daniels called for and that his critics decry is a fact of life.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor, and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. © 2010 the Washington Examiner.
from: National Review Online
Back in June, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who many think would be an attractive 2012 presidential candidate, was quoted by Andrew Ferguson in The Weekly Standard as saying the next president “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues.”
That quickly attracted some harsh criticism from opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage. But Daniels has declined to back down, telling the Indianapolis Star the other day that such issues are secondary to the economy and foreign policy.
I think both Daniels and his critics have missed the point. The fact is that there is an ongoing truce on the social issues, because for most Americans they have been overshadowed by concerns raised by the weak economy and the Barack Obama Democrats’ vast increase in the size and scope of government.
Those with strong positions on both sides of the abortion and gay-rights issues don’t like to hear that. They base their views on strongly held moral beliefs that are intellectually defensible and not vicious in character.
And for more than a decade, they had gotten used to a politics in which the demographic variable most highly correlated with voting behavior was religion, or degree of religiosity, and in which positions on abortion were very highly correlated with partisan preference.
Our politics in the years from 1995 to 2005 or so was like a culture war between two approximately equal-sized armies fighting it out over small bits of terrain that made the difference between victory and defeat. In that context, abortion and other cultural issues were litmus tests in the contests for both parties’ presidential nominations.
I don’t think that’s likely to be the case in the future. You don’t hear potential contenders for the 2012 Republican nomination talking about cultural issues very much. And the intramural arguments among Democrats are over things like tax cuts for the rich and the public option in the health-care bill.
Even as economics is overshadowing all else, we seem to have reached a truce in the culture wars because important issues have been settled as a practical matter.
Abortion remains controversial. But we are not going to see abortion criminalized, not in a country where the Supreme Court has been ruling for 37 years that it’s a right.
At the same time, we are seeing abortion disfavored and restricted by state laws that are widely popular and have at least in some cases been upheld by the courts. Polls show that young voters, liberal on most cultural issues, have slightly more negative views on abortion than their elders.
On gay rights, we also see something in the nature of a truce. Polls suggest majority support for Congress’s repeal of the ban on open gays in the military, and the Marine Corps commandant, who opposed the change, promised to work hard to implement it.
Same-sex marriage is accepted in Massachusetts and nearly gained majority support in referenda in Maine and California. But many states have passed constitutional amendments banning it. It is unlikely to pass muster with voters or legislators in most of the South anytime soon, if only because most black voters are opposed (blacks voted 70 percent against it in California).
There’s a sharp difference between old and young voters on same-sex marriage, and my guess is that young voters will continue to favor it by wide margins as they grow older — but maybe not. In the meantime, discrimination against or disparagement of gays and lesbians is increasingly frowned on by larger and larger majorities.
American history is a long chronicle of, among other things, people with different views on religious and cultural issues living in more or less close and amicable proximity with one another. Sometimes that’s hard, when government faces binary issues (should abortion be legal?) that must be decided one way or the other.
But on the cultural issues that have been the focus of political contention, we seem to have reached a status quo that, while not acceptable to some with strong views on both sides, is one most Americans can live with. The truce that Mitch Daniels called for and that his critics decry is a fact of life.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor, and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. © 2010 the Washington Examiner.
from: National Review Online
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The year of the nannies
2010 was the year of the nannies. Michelle Malkin identifies the most egregious examples here.
Take a quiz on how well you followed the news in 2010.
The Pew Research Center has a quiz on how well you followed some of 2010's top news stories. Take the quiz here.
"The redistribution of health"
Laura Ingraham blogs here about the "redistribution of health" and "hospice chutes."
Rare-Earth Metals
Which country supplies the world with 95% of the "rare-earth minerals" used in high tech batteries, television sets, cellphones and defense products? That's right, China. In the second half of 2010 China decided to cut its exports of rare-earth minerals by 72%. Read more about this issue here.
A Cautionary Tale
Motel Zero has a cautionary tale. If you are a gingerbread man, don't look at this post.
We will be thinking of you tomorrow, Al Gore
Tomorrow we have a "100% chance of precipitation," with high winds and 5-10 inches of snow predicted. They always add "heavier accumulations in local areas." Then, for the next three nights, our temperatures will be below zero.
Al's photo courtesy of The Looking Spoon
Al's photo courtesy of The Looking Spoon
The Pleasure of My Company
I like a book that makes me chuckle. Steve Martin's The Pleasure of My Company did just that. I had been seeing his name on the best seller lists, and decided to see what I could check out from the library. First I checked out Shop Girl, but that one did not hold my interest. The Pleasure of My Company definitely did. It is filled with irony, yet also with much sweetness. It is written in first person from the point of view of a 31-year-old man who is a prisoner of his own neurotic obsessions. A neighbor in his apartment building, while the two are jogging, helps him to see that he can break free from one of those obsessions.
Our main character becomes the caretaker of the toddler son of his therapist, who is a graduate student in psychology, and he decides he wants to leave this child free of the constrictions he has erected in his own life. A woman, to whom he has long been attracted, who is a pharmacist who fills his prescriptions at Rite Aid, sees how sweet and kind he is to the toddler, and she becomes attracted to him, too. She has a great sense of humor, and divides his obsessions into three categories: acceptable, unacceptable, and hilarious. He decides to make the most of one of his obsessions, silent counting and alphabetizing, and becomes gainfully employed at Hewlet Packard.
The book has a very happy ending, which I won't ruin with this review.
Our main character becomes the caretaker of the toddler son of his therapist, who is a graduate student in psychology, and he decides he wants to leave this child free of the constrictions he has erected in his own life. A woman, to whom he has long been attracted, who is a pharmacist who fills his prescriptions at Rite Aid, sees how sweet and kind he is to the toddler, and she becomes attracted to him, too. She has a great sense of humor, and divides his obsessions into three categories: acceptable, unacceptable, and hilarious. He decides to make the most of one of his obsessions, silent counting and alphabetizing, and becomes gainfully employed at Hewlet Packard.
The book has a very happy ending, which I won't ruin with this review.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Drugging our kids
The 2009 results are in. We are drugging our kids at a world record rate. The Wall Street Journal reports on the total number of prescriptions or refills dispensed to children and teens.
ADHD Medications: 24,357,000. Included in that number were 7,018,000 to children ages 0-9, and 17,339,000 to children 10-19 years old.
9,614,000 Antidepressants (1,026,000 to children 0-9 years old and 8,588,000 to children 10-19 years old).
6,546,000 Antipsychotic medications (1,396,000 to children ages 0-9, and 5,150,000 to children ages 10-19.
More than 25% of U.S. children are taking a medication on a chronic basis. That number includes asthma and antihypertensive meds.
ADHD Medications: 24,357,000. Included in that number were 7,018,000 to children ages 0-9, and 17,339,000 to children 10-19 years old.
9,614,000 Antidepressants (1,026,000 to children 0-9 years old and 8,588,000 to children 10-19 years old).
6,546,000 Antipsychotic medications (1,396,000 to children ages 0-9, and 5,150,000 to children ages 10-19.
More than 25% of U.S. children are taking a medication on a chronic basis. That number includes asthma and antihypertensive meds.
No Christmas in Iraq's Muslim-ruled areas
Daphne at Jaded Haven wonders how it can be a good thing that Christians are being targeted in Iraq's Muslim-ruled areas.
Monday, December 27, 2010
The Federal Reserve: Whom is it helping?
The Burning Platform is a blog that does its homework. In this essay about our economy, the writer supports his argument with graphs and persuasive data. Here is an example of 2010 price increases we have all had to deal with.
The blogger's main points are that Federal Reserve policies have hurt senior citizens and squeezed the middle class terribly, while enriching Bernanke's true masters, "the ruling elite who control the wealth in this country
"Only an Ivy League academic could examine the following yearly price data and conclude, as Bernanke has, that inflation is well contained:"
Unleaded gas up 24%
Heating Oil up 28%
Corn up 50%
Wheat up 48%
Coffee up 56%
Sugar up 27%
Soybeans up 30%
Beef up 26%
Pork up 22%
Cotton up 101%
Copper up 33%
Silver up 72%
The blogger's main points are that Federal Reserve policies have hurt senior citizens and squeezed the middle class terribly, while enriching Bernanke's true masters, "the ruling elite who control the wealth in this country
Kwanzaa and other faiths
President Obama gave us this Kwanzaa greeting yesterday:
Visit the Moonbattery blog and scroll down to find two December 27, 2010 posts that you will not find in your local newspaper. Moonbattery gives us background information about Kwanzaa and also some history of the President's own religious faith.
"Michelle and I extend our warmest thoughts and wishes to all those who are celebrating Kwanzaa this holiday season. Today is the first of a joyful seven-day celebration of African-American culture and heritage. The seven principles of Kwanzaa — Unity, Self-Determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity and Faith — are some of the very values that make us Americans."
Visit the Moonbattery blog and scroll down to find two December 27, 2010 posts that you will not find in your local newspaper. Moonbattery gives us background information about Kwanzaa and also some history of the President's own religious faith.
Price of silver rises 51% in 2010
The Wall Street Journal has this story today about the price of silver soaring. Guess which countries are producing the most silver? Peru, Mexico, and China. The United States ranks eighth. Maybe we'll see some mines open back up here in Colorado and other western states.
New Medicare regulations bring death panels to life
Fausta's Blog breaks this story about Death Panels being written into Medicare regulations. Implementation date? January 1, 2011!
Malkin: Prayers for the Inspector General, Please
Michelle Malkin has a breaking news story here. Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has informed members of Congress that he is going to investigate allegations of selective enforcement of civil rights laws in the New Black Panther voter intimidation case that Eric Holder's Justice Department declined to prosecute. Malkin respects Mr. Fine, and believes this is a significant story.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Sara's Christmas 2010
Whoever created the AquaSand game should be required to clean up after each child that uses it. Sara enjoyed it while it lasted, then gave us her present to us: a 2011 handprint calendar. My three favorites were September, July, and December, so, here they are!
A New Slinky
What is Christmas without a new slinky, to replace the ones from the nine previous Christmases? Jon seems to like it.
A Christmas Card from Greg
This is the front of a poem card that 9-year-old Greg made for us today.
The inside of the card is hard to read, even if you click on it. Here is the poem 9-year-old Greg wrote: "Dear Mom and Dad,
What makes the clouds clear up?
Who goes off and buys me syrup?
Mom and Dad!
Who are the ones that tuck me in?
Who are the people that never sin?
Mom and Dad!
Who's always happy?
Who's never snappy?
I'll tell you who! Mom and Dad!
Oh, and by the way, Merry Christmas!"
Even though he overrates us tremendously, Greg is a kid who knows how to show gratitude, as do Jon and Sara. I'm thankful for that. I'm also thankful that our kids have two parents intimately involved in their daily lives.
The inside of the card is hard to read, even if you click on it. Here is the poem 9-year-old Greg wrote: "Dear Mom and Dad,
What makes the clouds clear up?
Who goes off and buys me syrup?
Mom and Dad!
Who are the ones that tuck me in?
Who are the people that never sin?
Mom and Dad!
Who's always happy?
Who's never snappy?
I'll tell you who! Mom and Dad!
Oh, and by the way, Merry Christmas!"
Even though he overrates us tremendously, Greg is a kid who knows how to show gratitude, as do Jon and Sara. I'm thankful for that. I'm also thankful that our kids have two parents intimately involved in their daily lives.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Garrison Keilor: Nonbelievers, please leave Christmas alone
December 16, 2009|By Garrison Keillor
I've just come from Cambridge, that beehive of brilliance, where nerds don't feel self-conscious: There's always someone nerdier nearby. If you are the World's Leading Authority on the mating habits of the jabberwock beetle of the Lesser Jujube Archipelago, you can take comfort in knowing that the pinch-faced drone next to you at Starbucks may be the W.L.A. on 17th-century Huguenot hymnody or a niche of quantum physics that is understood by nobody but himself.
People in Cambridge learn to be wary of brilliance, having seen geniuses in the throes of deep thought step into potholes and disappear. Such as the brilliant economist Lawrence Summers, whose presidency brought Harvard to the verge of disaster. He, against the advice of his lessers, invested Harvard's operating funds in the stock market and lost the bet. In the cold light of day, this was dumber than dirt, like putting the kids' lunch money on Valiant's Fancy to win in the 5th. And now the genius is in the White House, two short flights of stairs above the Oval Office. This does not make Cantabrigians feel better about our nation's economic future.
You can blame Ralph Waldo Emerson for the brazen foolishness of the elite. He preached here at the First Church of Cambridge, a Unitarian outfit (where I discovered that "Silent Night" has been cleverly rewritten to make it more about silence and night and not so much about God), and Emerson tossed off little bon mots that have been leading people astray ever since. "To be great is to be misunderstood," for example. This tiny gem of self-pity has given license to a million arrogant and unlovable people to imagine that their unpopularity somehow was proof of their greatness.
And all his hoo-ha about listening to the voice within and don't follow the path, make your own path and leave a trail and so forth, encouraged people who might've been excellent janitors to become bold and innovative economists who run a wealthy university into the ditch.
Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that's their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite "Silent Night." If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.
Christmas is a Christian holiday - if you're not in the club, then buzz off. Celebrate Yule instead or dance around in druid robes for the solstice. Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don't mess with the Messiah.
Christmas does not need any improvements. It is a common, ordinary experience that resists brilliant innovation. Just make some gingerbread persons and light three candles and sing softly in dim light about the poor man gathering winter fu-u-el and the radiant beams and the holly and the ivy, and you've got it. Too many people work too hard to make Christmas perfect, find the perfect gifts, get a turkey that reaches 100 percent of potential. Perfection is a goal of brilliant people, and it is unnecessary where Christmas is concerned.
The most wonderful Christmas of my life was 1997, a quiet day with no gifts and no tree, waiting in a New York apartment for my daughter to be born. And the second most wonderful was one in the Norwegian Arctic, where it rained every day and the sun came up around 11 and set around 1, not that you ever actually saw the sun, and the food was abominable, boiled cod and watery potatoes, and the people were cold and resentful, and there was no brilliance whatsoever. And I had the flu. Why was I there? Good question. But every year it gladdens my heart to know that I will not be going to Norway for Christmas. A terrific investment. Mr. Summers should be so smart. For one week of misery, I get an annual joyfulness dividend of at least 25 percent. Merry Christmas, my dears.
Garrison Keillor's column appears regularly in The Baltimore Sun. His e-mail is oldscout@prairiehome.net.
I've just come from Cambridge, that beehive of brilliance, where nerds don't feel self-conscious: There's always someone nerdier nearby. If you are the World's Leading Authority on the mating habits of the jabberwock beetle of the Lesser Jujube Archipelago, you can take comfort in knowing that the pinch-faced drone next to you at Starbucks may be the W.L.A. on 17th-century Huguenot hymnody or a niche of quantum physics that is understood by nobody but himself.
People in Cambridge learn to be wary of brilliance, having seen geniuses in the throes of deep thought step into potholes and disappear. Such as the brilliant economist Lawrence Summers, whose presidency brought Harvard to the verge of disaster. He, against the advice of his lessers, invested Harvard's operating funds in the stock market and lost the bet. In the cold light of day, this was dumber than dirt, like putting the kids' lunch money on Valiant's Fancy to win in the 5th. And now the genius is in the White House, two short flights of stairs above the Oval Office. This does not make Cantabrigians feel better about our nation's economic future.
You can blame Ralph Waldo Emerson for the brazen foolishness of the elite. He preached here at the First Church of Cambridge, a Unitarian outfit (where I discovered that "Silent Night" has been cleverly rewritten to make it more about silence and night and not so much about God), and Emerson tossed off little bon mots that have been leading people astray ever since. "To be great is to be misunderstood," for example. This tiny gem of self-pity has given license to a million arrogant and unlovable people to imagine that their unpopularity somehow was proof of their greatness.
And all his hoo-ha about listening to the voice within and don't follow the path, make your own path and leave a trail and so forth, encouraged people who might've been excellent janitors to become bold and innovative economists who run a wealthy university into the ditch.
Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that's their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite "Silent Night." If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.
Christmas is a Christian holiday - if you're not in the club, then buzz off. Celebrate Yule instead or dance around in druid robes for the solstice. Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don't mess with the Messiah.
Christmas does not need any improvements. It is a common, ordinary experience that resists brilliant innovation. Just make some gingerbread persons and light three candles and sing softly in dim light about the poor man gathering winter fu-u-el and the radiant beams and the holly and the ivy, and you've got it. Too many people work too hard to make Christmas perfect, find the perfect gifts, get a turkey that reaches 100 percent of potential. Perfection is a goal of brilliant people, and it is unnecessary where Christmas is concerned.
The most wonderful Christmas of my life was 1997, a quiet day with no gifts and no tree, waiting in a New York apartment for my daughter to be born. And the second most wonderful was one in the Norwegian Arctic, where it rained every day and the sun came up around 11 and set around 1, not that you ever actually saw the sun, and the food was abominable, boiled cod and watery potatoes, and the people were cold and resentful, and there was no brilliance whatsoever. And I had the flu. Why was I there? Good question. But every year it gladdens my heart to know that I will not be going to Norway for Christmas. A terrific investment. Mr. Summers should be so smart. For one week of misery, I get an annual joyfulness dividend of at least 25 percent. Merry Christmas, my dears.
Garrison Keillor's column appears regularly in The Baltimore Sun. His e-mail is oldscout@prairiehome.net.
Michael Rosen: Why This Orthodox Jew Loves Christmas Music
Why This Orthodox Jew Loves Christmas Music
A Jewish American hails the season.
For me, an Orthodox Jew in 21st-century America, December truly is the most wonderful time of the year.
Yes, there’s Hanukkah and the family and community celebration it entails. And, sure, there’s winter vacation, the week or so between Christmas and New Year’s when the kids are home from school and my wife and I take time off from work.
But I really love December because it’s around then that my cable provider revives its “Sounds of the Seasons” music channel, which airs round-the-clock Christmas music through early January. Yes, I admit it: My name is Michael Rosen, and I love Christmas music.
Let me be clear: I am deeply proud of my faith, which I practice rigorously. While I genuinely respect the tenets of other creeds, I abhor religious syncretism of all sorts, and I have no desire to observe Christian holidays; the 20-plus yearly holidays on the Jewish calendar are plenty, thank you very much. And I profoundly loathe aggressive proselytizers of all stripes, especially those, like Jews for Jesus, that train their fire on me and my people.
I’ve also enjoyed the recent boomlet in neo-Chanukah music, including the amusing (Adam Sandler’s iconic “Hanukkah Song” and its sequels, and Tom Lehrer’s hilarious “Hanukkah in Santa Monica”), the catchy (the sweet-natured, harmonious “Eight Days of Hanukkah” by the unlikely interfaith duo of Sen. Orrin Hatch and Jeffrey Goldberg), and the viral (“Candlelight” by the Maccabeats of Yeshiva University).
Yet Christmas music exerts a strong emotional and intellectual influence over me every December, for three distinct reasons, in increasing order of importance: its musical beauty; its deep-seated American-ness; and, most importantly, its powerful message of religious tolerance.
The first reason is more or less purely aesthetic. Christmas tunes are almost uniformly melodious and tend to evoke intense emotions ranging from joy to nostalgia. Some songs are frivolous, some serious, others uplifting, but they universally make for agreeable listening.
They also span many different genres and artists. Every superstar American musician — from Sinatra to Crosby to Fitzgerald to Elvis to George Michael to Beyoncé to (shudder) Kenny G — has performed a memorable version of at least one Christmas song, if not an entire album of such songs. Whether it’s Perry Como crooning “Do You Hear What I Hear?” or Nat King Cole scratching out “The Christmas Song,” or even Green Day screeching “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” the musical category enjoys an esteemed pedigree.
The second, more important reason I delight in Christmas music derives from its distinctly American character. Here, it’s important to distinguish the strictly religious Christmas songs, such as “The First Noël,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Come All Ye Faithful,” from the generic “winter season” tunes, such as “Sleigh Ride,” “Walking in a Winter Wonderland,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” These latter songs are as American as apple pie, expressing a seasonal commonality felt by all Americans, regardless of creed. Wintry themes such as snow, love, gifts, fires, and family offer something for everyone and remind us that Americans of varied faiths, ethnicities, and generations share much more than we think.
There’s no reason American Jews — even observant ones — can’t relate to these tunes. Indeed, as Marc Tracy and David Lehman have documented, many of the most famous of these wintry songs were written by Jewish composers, including Irving Berlin (“White Christmas”), Joan Ellen Javits and Phillip Springer (“Santa Baby”), Mel Tormé (“The Christmas Song”), and Sammy Cahn (“Let It Snow”).
And as Lehman ably explains in A Fine Romance (Nextbook, 222 pp.), his perceptive history of the influence of Jewish songwriters on the American musical catalog, “the Jewish element in American popular song is a property not only of the notes and chords but of the words as well, or, more exactly, the union between words and music.” Jewish songwriters absorbed and displayed a discerning understanding of American culture. (This unexpected truth provoked a splenetic tirade last year from Garrison Keillor, who railed against “lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys” and un-Christianly explained that “Christmas is a Christian holiday — if you’re not in the club, then buzz off.”)
But the third and most significant reason I relish the Christmas canon pertains to the strongly religious nature of the spiritual songs. While I obviously don’t share the theology they express, the religious melodies provide a stark, visceral reminder of the Christian origins of the United States, and especially of the astoundingly warm welcome the early Americans extended to Jews because of, not in spite of, their Christian faith.
The pilgrims, of course, arrived on our continent while fleeing religious persecution and thus were highly sensitive to faith-based oppression. They also evinced a fierce devotion to the customs and history of the Hebrew people; one instance of this was the establishment, at Harvard and Yale, of Hebrew as a mandatory language. This love and tolerance deeply informed the First Amendment, guaranteeing Jews — among others — the right to freely exercise their religion in the absence of an established state faith.
In his famous 1790 letter to the Jews of Newport, R.I., George Washington expressed this fervent hope: “May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.” Washington’s encomium reflects God’s solemn promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that “those who bless you, I shall bless, and those who curse you, I shall curse.” In other words, Washington’s devotion to his faith sparked his ardent desire to protect “the Stock of Abraham” in the new United States.
This sentiment reaches its full expression in my personal favorite of the religious songs: “O Holy Night.” (I especially enjoy the version performed by Josh Groban, whose father was born Jewish but converted to Episcopalianism.) The music, naturally, is exquisite, but the lyrics nicely illustrate the philosemitic tendencies of the Christmas canon. Composed and written by two 19th-century Frenchmen, the song, while distinctly Christian, is a paean to religious tolerance:
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
The song forthrightly acknowledges the religious obligation borne by all Christians to love the stranger, unchain the enslaved, and liberate the oppressed. It’s difficult to overstate the intellectual and emotional impact of such an approach on American Jews, whom the U.S. has welcomed with open, Christian arms. Thus, whenever I hear Christmas songs sung in English, I cannot help but swell with thankfulness that I’m allowed to freely practice my faith in such an extraordinary country, where, notwithstanding the caterwauling of extreme activists, (almost) all oppression has ceased.
Would that this tolerance were the norm around the world. Nowadays, where Christianity flourishes, Judaism thrives. But where secularism reigns, and where Islamism prevails, Jews find themselves under assault. Europe, home to the world’s largest Jewish population for centuries, has rapidly become the least hospitable place for Jewish communities to take root, as secular values and assertive Muslim populations have advanced. Tragically, oppression is on the march on the very continent that midwifed “O Holy Night.” Even here in the U.S., residents of San Francisco, the most secular of American big cities, now seek to ban circumcision.
So I take nothing for granted when it comes to religious tolerance, and I’m grateful for the musical reinforcement I receive every December. Do I get strange looks from passersby on the streets of (mostly WASPy) La Jolla when, wearing my yarmulke, I’m whistling “O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord”? Absolutely. But such are the wages of being Jewish in America in the modern era. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
— Michael M. Rosen is an attorney and writer in San Diego. Reach him at michaelmrosen@yahoo.com.
(from National Review Online)
A Jewish American hails the season.
For me, an Orthodox Jew in 21st-century America, December truly is the most wonderful time of the year.
Yes, there’s Hanukkah and the family and community celebration it entails. And, sure, there’s winter vacation, the week or so between Christmas and New Year’s when the kids are home from school and my wife and I take time off from work.
But I really love December because it’s around then that my cable provider revives its “Sounds of the Seasons” music channel, which airs round-the-clock Christmas music through early January. Yes, I admit it: My name is Michael Rosen, and I love Christmas music.
Let me be clear: I am deeply proud of my faith, which I practice rigorously. While I genuinely respect the tenets of other creeds, I abhor religious syncretism of all sorts, and I have no desire to observe Christian holidays; the 20-plus yearly holidays on the Jewish calendar are plenty, thank you very much. And I profoundly loathe aggressive proselytizers of all stripes, especially those, like Jews for Jesus, that train their fire on me and my people.
I’ve also enjoyed the recent boomlet in neo-Chanukah music, including the amusing (Adam Sandler’s iconic “Hanukkah Song” and its sequels, and Tom Lehrer’s hilarious “Hanukkah in Santa Monica”), the catchy (the sweet-natured, harmonious “Eight Days of Hanukkah” by the unlikely interfaith duo of Sen. Orrin Hatch and Jeffrey Goldberg), and the viral (“Candlelight” by the Maccabeats of Yeshiva University).
Yet Christmas music exerts a strong emotional and intellectual influence over me every December, for three distinct reasons, in increasing order of importance: its musical beauty; its deep-seated American-ness; and, most importantly, its powerful message of religious tolerance.
The first reason is more or less purely aesthetic. Christmas tunes are almost uniformly melodious and tend to evoke intense emotions ranging from joy to nostalgia. Some songs are frivolous, some serious, others uplifting, but they universally make for agreeable listening.
They also span many different genres and artists. Every superstar American musician — from Sinatra to Crosby to Fitzgerald to Elvis to George Michael to Beyoncé to (shudder) Kenny G — has performed a memorable version of at least one Christmas song, if not an entire album of such songs. Whether it’s Perry Como crooning “Do You Hear What I Hear?” or Nat King Cole scratching out “The Christmas Song,” or even Green Day screeching “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” the musical category enjoys an esteemed pedigree.
The second, more important reason I delight in Christmas music derives from its distinctly American character. Here, it’s important to distinguish the strictly religious Christmas songs, such as “The First Noël,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Come All Ye Faithful,” from the generic “winter season” tunes, such as “Sleigh Ride,” “Walking in a Winter Wonderland,” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” These latter songs are as American as apple pie, expressing a seasonal commonality felt by all Americans, regardless of creed. Wintry themes such as snow, love, gifts, fires, and family offer something for everyone and remind us that Americans of varied faiths, ethnicities, and generations share much more than we think.
There’s no reason American Jews — even observant ones — can’t relate to these tunes. Indeed, as Marc Tracy and David Lehman have documented, many of the most famous of these wintry songs were written by Jewish composers, including Irving Berlin (“White Christmas”), Joan Ellen Javits and Phillip Springer (“Santa Baby”), Mel Tormé (“The Christmas Song”), and Sammy Cahn (“Let It Snow”).
And as Lehman ably explains in A Fine Romance (Nextbook, 222 pp.), his perceptive history of the influence of Jewish songwriters on the American musical catalog, “the Jewish element in American popular song is a property not only of the notes and chords but of the words as well, or, more exactly, the union between words and music.” Jewish songwriters absorbed and displayed a discerning understanding of American culture. (This unexpected truth provoked a splenetic tirade last year from Garrison Keillor, who railed against “lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys” and un-Christianly explained that “Christmas is a Christian holiday — if you’re not in the club, then buzz off.”)
But the third and most significant reason I relish the Christmas canon pertains to the strongly religious nature of the spiritual songs. While I obviously don’t share the theology they express, the religious melodies provide a stark, visceral reminder of the Christian origins of the United States, and especially of the astoundingly warm welcome the early Americans extended to Jews because of, not in spite of, their Christian faith.
The pilgrims, of course, arrived on our continent while fleeing religious persecution and thus were highly sensitive to faith-based oppression. They also evinced a fierce devotion to the customs and history of the Hebrew people; one instance of this was the establishment, at Harvard and Yale, of Hebrew as a mandatory language. This love and tolerance deeply informed the First Amendment, guaranteeing Jews — among others — the right to freely exercise their religion in the absence of an established state faith.
In his famous 1790 letter to the Jews of Newport, R.I., George Washington expressed this fervent hope: “May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.” Washington’s encomium reflects God’s solemn promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that “those who bless you, I shall bless, and those who curse you, I shall curse.” In other words, Washington’s devotion to his faith sparked his ardent desire to protect “the Stock of Abraham” in the new United States.
This sentiment reaches its full expression in my personal favorite of the religious songs: “O Holy Night.” (I especially enjoy the version performed by Josh Groban, whose father was born Jewish but converted to Episcopalianism.) The music, naturally, is exquisite, but the lyrics nicely illustrate the philosemitic tendencies of the Christmas canon. Composed and written by two 19th-century Frenchmen, the song, while distinctly Christian, is a paean to religious tolerance:
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
The song forthrightly acknowledges the religious obligation borne by all Christians to love the stranger, unchain the enslaved, and liberate the oppressed. It’s difficult to overstate the intellectual and emotional impact of such an approach on American Jews, whom the U.S. has welcomed with open, Christian arms. Thus, whenever I hear Christmas songs sung in English, I cannot help but swell with thankfulness that I’m allowed to freely practice my faith in such an extraordinary country, where, notwithstanding the caterwauling of extreme activists, (almost) all oppression has ceased.
Would that this tolerance were the norm around the world. Nowadays, where Christianity flourishes, Judaism thrives. But where secularism reigns, and where Islamism prevails, Jews find themselves under assault. Europe, home to the world’s largest Jewish population for centuries, has rapidly become the least hospitable place for Jewish communities to take root, as secular values and assertive Muslim populations have advanced. Tragically, oppression is on the march on the very continent that midwifed “O Holy Night.” Even here in the U.S., residents of San Francisco, the most secular of American big cities, now seek to ban circumcision.
So I take nothing for granted when it comes to religious tolerance, and I’m grateful for the musical reinforcement I receive every December. Do I get strange looks from passersby on the streets of (mostly WASPy) La Jolla when, wearing my yarmulke, I’m whistling “O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord”? Absolutely. But such are the wages of being Jewish in America in the modern era. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
— Michael M. Rosen is an attorney and writer in San Diego. Reach him at michaelmrosen@yahoo.com.
(from National Review Online)
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Billy Graham- "What would you do differently?"
Yesterday Greta Van Susteran of Fox News interviewed 92-year old Billy Graham. It was the first interview he has done in many years. The best part of the interview was when she asked about his life and call, and what he would do differently if he could do things over again.
Greta: If you were to do things over again, would you do it differently?
BG: Yes. I would study more. I would pray more, travel less, take less speaking engagements. I took too many of them, in too many places around the world. If I had it to do over again, I'd spend more time in meditation and prayer, and just telling the Lord how much I love 'im, and adore him. And I'm looking forward to the time we're going to spend together for eternity.
Greta: Why would you speak less when you had such an enormous audience and people listening? Why would you want to speak less?
BG: I didn't that I would speak less in all these great stadiums. I meant that I would speak less at all kinds of conferences and things that I was invited to throughout the world, especially in Great Britain and the United States. Because I'd get up and travel to these places, and I didn't have time to think and study and pray, and I needed time for that. And if I had it to do over again, i would try to organize it much better.
Greta: At what age did you realize that you wanted to be a preacher?
BG: I guess I was about eighteen or nineteen. I was in Florida. I was a student in a small Bible school near Tampa. And it used to be a country club where we had the school and I used to walk the streets in this area that had completely disintegrated because of the Depression at that time. And I would pray and I would ask God for a direction for my life and for the genuine purpose of my life. What am I here for? And one night I was out on the eighteenth green lying there beside the green in the moonlight and the palm trees. And the Lord seemed to call me and said that I was to preach the gospel. And from that time on I began to prepare. By preparation I mean I began to read books that would contribute to what I would say in the years to come. And then I began to realize that my job was to try win other people to Christ, which I did privately and publicly, which became eventually my sermons that we call evangelism.
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