Polite Kid

The tainted pet food story seems to grow and grow, although it is currently being soft-pedaled in the media. But here is a recent Washington Post piece which warns us that
It's Not Just Pet Food
"...It's not just pet owners who should be worried. The uncontrolled distribution of low-quality imported food ingredients, mainly from China, poses a grave threat to public health worldwide.
Essential ingredients, such as vitamins used in many packaged foods, arrive at U.S. ports from China and, as recent news reports have underscored, are shipped without inspection to food and beverage distributors and manufacturers. Although they are used in relatively small quantities, these ingredients carry enormous risks for American consumers. One pound of tainted wheat gluten could, if undetected, contaminate as much as a thousand pounds of food.
[...]We know, however, that alarms have been raised about hygiene and labor standards at many Chinese manufacturing facilities. In China, municipal water used in the manufacturing process is often contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides and other chemicals. Food ingredient production is particularly susceptible to environmental contamination.
Equally worrisome, U.S. officials often lack the capability to trace foreign-produced food ingredients to their source of manufacture. In theory, the Bioterrorism Prevention Act of 2001 provides some measure of traceability. In practice, the act is ineffective and was not designed for this challenge. Its enforcement is also shrouded in secrecy by the Department of Homeland Security.
Even if Food and Drug Administration regulators wanted to crack down on products emanating from the riskiest foreign facilities, they couldn't, because they have no way of knowing which ingredients come from which plant.
[...]...80 percent of the world's vitamin C is now manufactured in China -- much of it unregulated and some of it of questionable quality.
[...]The United States is sitting on powder keg with uncontrolled importation and the distribution of low-quality food ingredients. Before it explodes -- putting more animals and people at risk -- corrective steps must be taken.''
And this blogger elaborates further on the vitamin issue in her informative blog entry.
Did any of you realize the fact that China monopolizes so much of the vitamin market? I was not aware of that situation. Some sources I read say that China produces almost all the vitamins we buy in this country, although according to the Washington Post article, they make 'only' 80 percent of the world supply.
Think how many vitamin supplements are ingested in our currently health-obsessed country. It's ironic that an item which is sold as a health-enhancing, life-giving product might turn out to be toxic or tainted.
And here:
Food Inspectors Target Bay Area Ethnic Markets
(CBS 5) ANTIOCH The cost of testing and inspection are making it a burden for county health officials in the Bay Area to examine the safety of imported foods sold at ethnic markets among other places.
Potentially unsafe imported food slips past inspection every day in California.
At one Thai and Laotian market in San Pablo, health inspectors found teas and puddings from China without ingredient labels, and food from Russia packed in cans made with lead.
[...]
"As safe as our food supply is, there is risk," he said. "I don't want people to be overly afraid of the food supply, but I think they need to be very careful."
Last month alone, the FDA detained almost 900 shipments of fish, vegetables, nuts, spices and oils. Imported foods were tainted by unsafe food-coloring, salmonella, or pesticides. Some shipments were just plain filthy.
China and Mexico are the biggest offenders.''
No surprise that those two countries would be the big offenders, and they are two countries which are seemingly being coddled and catered to by our government.
And speaking of our government, which supposedly acts in our interest,
Effort to guard U.S. food supply still sits on shelf
WASHINGTON - After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Food and Drug Administration developed a comprehensive plan to guard the U.S. food supply against tainted imports, which were seen as a serious security threat. But nearly six years later, the plan has languished because of a lack of official will and tight federal budgets, according to former senior officials involved in formulating the strategy.
[...]``It was a bitter pill to swallow,'' said Benjamin England, a former FDA regulatory lawyer who worked on the plan for the agency. ``I'm disappointed that they are basically sitting on the solution.''
In the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks, the government and an army of experts developed protections against a wide array of threats. But as time passed and no new attacks occurred, the sense of urgency faded. In the case of foodstuffs, the FDA's Import Strategic Plan fell victim to budget constraints, competing priorities and government inertia.
``The bottom line is that the United States is being overwhelmed with food imports, and they are not being screened by the FDA,'' said William Hubbard, a former FDA associate commissioner for policy and planning.
``A lot of time and effort went into it, and the best minds of the agency were brought in,'' he said of the import protection plan. ``It wasn't approved or disapproved. It was basically, `We can't do this because we have no money.''
There is, however, a new urgency to deal with the threat: The chemicals implicated in the pet deaths, identified as melamine and cyanuric acid, were found in protein ingredients used in human foods, ranging from bread to veggie burgers.
[...]
This week, the FDA announced that it is expanding testing for contamination of human foods. China, a country with a reputation for lax safety standards, is a major supplier of ingredients used in both pet and human food products marketed by U.S. companies.
And here, at the China Confidential blog, we read that
To make matters worse, China's retail sales arm--the brutal, Main Street-busting behemoth known as Wal-Mart--plans to grow so-called organic food in China. Organic food ... from a country plagued by toxic industrial pollution that taints the water and soil in which the crops are grown. Wonderful.
Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer of the FDA's food-safety center, said the agency was alerting food producers and importers about possible risks involving six protein-concentrate products. It also is testing imports from China.
The blogger Fallenmonk thinks the tainted pet food incidents are
Just the Tip of the Iceberg
The companies that distribute foods nationally can get their meat from anywhere in the world and sell it at your local grocery and you will never know where that meat came from unless there is a problem identified after the fact.
This is ugly and will get uglier trust me on that. We are at high risk and there is no one doing anything about it.''
I have to agree with him on that point; I don't see the issue being covered by the Big Media for the most part, except minimally. Of the bloggers who are sounding the alarm, most are dealing only with the pet food aspect of this story, which is merely one part of it. Maybe the media are hoping to play this story down, minimize it into a pet food only issue. And I certainly don't see any sense of urgency on the part of our government and our emasculated FDA to do much about this worrying problem, considering the vast scale of the situation.
Certainly some activism is called for here; this issue, as I said, should transcend politics; it's our safety, and we should all be concerned, regardless of where we are on the political spectrum. And simply becoming more aware of where our food comes from, reading labels, researching things, is a first step. I think many people, myself included, were only marginally aware of our utter dependence on imports for so many of our necessities, including food.
For a big, rich country like the United States to be dependent on foreign countries, especially untrustworthy countries, for so much of our food supply is dangerous and just plain foolish; this is a situation that needs rectifying.

Labels: Food Safety, Free Trade, Globalism, Media

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, there has been an ongoing discussion at Lawrence Auster's VFR about the misuse of the word "tragedy" to describe the event. At Chronicles magazine, Thomas Fleming also touches on that point briefly in his commentary on the shootings and the strange reactions which ensued. (I was also struck by that strangeness, and commented on it at the time.)
Tragedies make sense of the human world, while these pointless murders seem to reveal a world that makes no sense. In calling them tragedies, we are essentially saying that human existence is pointless.
This is not just a "semantic point." It is all too true that most Americans are like most people everywhere in all periods of history: They speak without thinking. But unreflective peasants relied on proverbs and clichés that were deeply rooted in historical experience. Our clichés and mental tics are almost always bits of propaganda invented by liberals ignorant of human nature and human history. In our mythology, children are smarter than adults, racial minorities smarter than whites, women stronger and braver than men. We believe that we really do care about people killing each other in Nigeria, even though we do nothing about the murders taking place on the other side of town, and we insist on calling every pointless misfortune a tragedy. We can only talk this way because we have tossed away our moral compasses.
[...]
It was within hours of the shooting that the professional counselors began arriving, as predictably as ambulance-chasing lawyers at an accident scene. As a people we are grown so dependent on "professionals" we cannot even mourn the death of a friend with grief counselors or, as I heard on NPR, "grievance counselors." (Someone should start a blog to record the constant gaffes in usage, syntax, and pronunciation on NPR. I would do it here, but the errors of Renee Montaigne alone would probably exhaust our band width.)
[...]
it seems from the accounts of journalists, VT students and Blacksburg residents showed solidarity by taking part in mass rallies where they wore the school colors and chanted the school�s football cheers. There is nothing wrong per se with any of this, but it strikes me as odd to see mass murders commemorated by pep rallies. What a strange people we have become. I am happy to learn I am not the only crank. Scott Richert sent me a link to Relapsed Catholic Blog on which one "Kathy" declares:
"Please don�t indulge in godless modern paganism and set up homely, self-indulgent makeshift memorials with cheap flowers and teddy bears. Don�t hold hands and sing bad pop songs.
Go to church. That�s what it�s for. For centuries, people smarter than you and with more finely honed aesthetics worked on rituals that actually do what they�re supposed to do.
Those people who hung around outside the Palace after Princess Diana�s death looked like fools and you will too if you cave to the lure of cheap grace and post-modern superficiality. Those British mourners displayed as much cringe-inducing, pan- generational learned helplessness as Katrina survivors, but their laziness and ignorance was spiritual.
Worse, you will still feel as empty as you did before, maybe more so, and wonder why.
Don�t make America look stupid and shallow to the whole world by Disneyfying your grief."
And I have to second the quote above from 'Kathy' at the Relapsed Catholic blog: I too have been dismayed at the growth of that strange ritual, which does seem rather heathenish, of constructing makeshift shrines to commemorate some 'tragedy'. The first time I saw it on such a large scale was during the apparent British breakdown after Diana's death in 1997. The public display of keening and garment-rending was unsettling, especially given the prevailing notion of the British as the most self-composed and stoic people; the old "stiff upper lip" which is no doubt a thing of the past. Liberalism seems to undermine the national culture and even the character of a people, destroying traditional virtues and national ideals and replacing them with a cheap counterfeit "compassion" which is all outward sentimental show. Hence the candlelight vigils, the maudlin rituals, the 'shrines' with piles of moldering stuffed toys out in the rain, and the wilting flowers. And above all, the passivity which insists that these events which occasion so much wailing and weeping are acts of an irresistible fate; there is no way to avoid them or prevent them except by lamenting 'violence' and the 'gun culture.'
And Dr. Fleming goes on to discuss the gun question here:
In principle I believe, as I have always believed, that an armed citizenry is the only solid basis for political liberty. However, the more I see of my fellow citizens in action, the more I am beginning to see the point of gun control. Few of them seem to have any part of the old American character, and still fewer have any understanding of republican government. Most of us, left and right alike, are consumers and subjects, but not citizens. ''
[...]
More important than protection from drive-by shooting or classroom killers is protection from the lethal sentimentality that has infected public discourse. Shun the counselors and avoid the neopagan ceremonials that are occasions for wallowing in unhappiness. And, whether you believe or not, seek solace in the Church, which has been treating the effects of sin and misery for 2000 years.''
Fleming makes many good points, and on reflection, I think I agree with his reservations about arming our fellow citizens. As he says, "Few of them seem to have any part of the old American character", but on the other hand, I would rather take my chances on my fellow citizens, however befuddled their notions are, than to give up the right to bear arms.
And to return to the new 'custom' of the piling up of toys and flowers as a 'memorial', why not do something useful to express one's respect for the dead, such as donating, not dead flowers and cheap toys, but the equivalent amount of money to a charitable fund, or a fund for the families of the deceased? The mountains of flowers and toys surely aren't much use to anyone after they sit out in the elements for several days. I remember in the days after Diana's death, seeing the huge mound of flowers, the icon-like pictures of Diana, and the jumble of stuffed toys. It reminded me, on first consideration, of those shrines to various Hindu gods in India, with piles of garlands and with garish images. Later, I simply thought it would only represent a costly clean-up job and ultimately a lot of money wasted, which could have been put to some useful purpose. It seemed to be a narcissistic thing, a way for the celebrity-struck to claim a connection to their idol. So much of the mourning by strangers in cases like that is a conspicuous kind of public grief, just as much of liberal behavior is a public acting-out of 'compassion' and morality; a way of sanctimonious preening -- which of course is encouraged in the presence of the ghoulish media.
I have noticed that whenever there is an occasion for grief involving young people, such as a fatal accident or a killing, the local news crews are Johnny-on-the-spot, filming the students' group hugs and tears. It seems like exploitation and sensationalism; in my own experience of grief, the last thing the mourners would want would be television cameras and voyeurs feeding on the raw emotion present. But in our media-driven age, nothing is sacred. Everything is ripe for exploitation, even the deep human emotions like grief and sorrow.
Dr. Fleming recommends seeking solace in the Church, but even many of the churches are now part of this heathenish culture of conspicuous public emotion; the TV crews are usually ensconced in the church at the funerals of victims of some ugly accident or crime, and the man (or woman) in the pulpit seems sometimes to be playing to the TV audience. Even the churches need to return to traditional standards of decorum and restraint in these situations.

Labels: American Culture, Liberalism, Media

On one of my forays looking for old books and ephemera, I found a number of wonderful old cookbooks (which I always enjoy; people ate so differently in the past) and a cache of some old newspapers from the 1930s. It's quite fascinating to read the old newspapers; it's like visiting another world for a while. The past, as we say around here, truly is another country.
The banner headline on one of these papers, dated April 18,1934 reads:
Negro Cult Followers Battle Detroit Police
I attempted to scan this for you all, but my scanner is not working properly, so I will just transcribe it.
Raid on Cult University Resented
Scores of Detroit PolicemenTrampled and Beaten by Mob of 500 Excited Negroes
Leaders are Jailed
'Knowledge of Spook Civilization' Taught Children
Detroit, April 18 -- Negro followers of the 'Cult of Islam', estimated by police to number 500, rioted today at police headquarters, where they had gathered in the mistaken belief the court arraignment of some of their leaders was to be held. They trampled and beat nearly a score of policemen.
Six policemen required hospital treatment. Dozens of other persons suffered less serious injuries before the rioters were dispersed by a riot squad of fifty men swinging night sticks.
The violence was the aftermath of a raid Monday on the "University of Islanm" [sic] whose curriculum, police investigators said, included such subjects as "general knowledge of spook civilization".
Fourteen leaders and instructors were arrested, charged with contributing to the delinquency of minorts and with subversive teaching.
The mob of negroes first gathered in Clinton Street, adjoining police headquarters, and after fifteen minutes of fist fighting, was broken up. A few minutes later, the fighting was resumed in front of police headquarters. A riot squad of fifty policemen finally scattered the demonstrators by using their night sticks.
Apparently, the crowd had gathered to attend the arraignment in recorder's court of fourteen instructors in the "University of Islam", who were arrested Monday night in a raid on the cult headquarters.
'Get the coppers'
The fighting started, police said, when a large negro identified as one of the cult leaders, shouted "get the coppers."
The cult, police believe, is a revival of another order which disbanded two years ago after a voodoo human sacrifice had been revealed.
The fourteen persons facing arraignment today were rescribed [sic] by police as instructors in the "university" and are charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors and subversive teachings. All gave Oriental names and none, investigators said, had teachers' licenses.
The "university" was raided at the request of public school officials who had become alarmed over the withdrawal of several hundred negro children from the schools. The roster of the school showed 400 names.
Police said they had learned that John Mohammed, 24, described as the cult leader, charged $1 for a "baptismal" ceremony by which negro members adopted Oriental names.
The curriculum of the "university" contained some ten standard subjects as "general knowledge of the spook being displayed for ,000 [sic] years," "general knowledge of spook civilization" and "the duty of a moslem."
I wonder how this story would have been reported by today's media? Or how the local authorities would have handled the situation?
And back then there was no CAIR and no Islamic lobby, no Moslem congressmen or other electeds to intervene.
How much has changed since then and yet how much remains the same.
Addendum: I found another contemporary account of the same events here. It adds a few details.
Arraigned on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of minors by keeping them out of public school, University of Islam instructors kept their mouths tight shut. From the textbooks police learned that the school's curriculum included courses in General Knowledge of the Spook Being Displayed for 6,000 Years, General Knowledge of Spook Civilization, The Duty of a Moslem. Sample lessons:"The actual knowledge of a sun of man has searched for 66,000,000,000 years or more and have not located the spook yet.""Sampson was the man who muscled up the stone in the City of Mecca. It weighed 3,000 Ib.""Mohammed killed 6,000,000 Christians in his time and put 90,000 heads in a hole."

Labels: American History, Cults, Media, Mohammedanism, Multiculturalism

...that we won't hear about on Fox News or the other major media:
Three more border agents assaulted
One Border Patrol agent was nearly struck with a vehicle and two more nearly drowned within the past 10 days.
Yuma sector spokesman Chris Van Wagenen said these types of incidents are something the Border Patrol expects. He said those who profit from illegal activity are not going to give up control of the border without a fight.
"They're hoping to win through intimidation and violence.''
[...] The number of illegal aliens crossing the border has gone down, thanks to increased enforcement and the presence of the National Guard. But as the Border Patrol has predicted for some time, the amount of violence has gone up.
The record number of Border Patrol agent assaults for one fiscal year is 119. In 2006-07, there have already been 90 after only about four months, according to Van Wagenen.
"It's a 60 percent increase on last year," he said.'
Meanwhile, our major media makes sure we know all the latest celebrity news and gossip. 'Pay no attention to the ongoing border war' seems to be the attitude.

Labels: Borders, Illegal Immigration, Media

Certainly the open borders liberals don't, and neither does Reuters writer Bernd Debusmann:
Around globe, walls spring up to divide neighbors
TIJUANA, Mexico, April 30 (Reuters) - What do Tijuana, Baghdad and Jerusalem have in common?
They all have walls that divide neighbors, cause controversy and form part of an array of physical barriers around the world that dwarf the late, unlamented Iron Curtain.
There are walls, fences, trenches and berms. Some are reinforced by motion detectors, heat-sensing cameras, X-ray systems, night-vision equipment, helicopters, drones and blimps. Some are still under construction, some in the planning stage.
When completed, the barriers will run thousands of miles (kilometres), in places as far apart as Mexico and India, Afghanistan and Spain, Morocco and Thailand, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
They are meant to keep job-hungry immigrants, terrorists and smugglers out, thwart invaders, and keep antagonists apart.''Their proponents cite the proverb "Good fences make good neighbors" but critics say they are a paradoxical result of globalization in so far as goods and capital can move freely but migrants cannot.'
"Good fences make good neighbors" is also a line from the same Robert Frost poem, 'The Mending Wall' which I quoted at the beginning. Actually in it, Frost seems to be arguing against the necessity of walls, likening his wall-building neighbor to a 'stone-savage.'
If I could put a notion in his head;
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall...
So, Bernd Debusmann, Reuters reporter, might consider who we are "walling in or walling out." Actually, Bernd, we are not walling out too many people, it seems, given that about 3 million illegals skulk across our erstwhile 'borders' every year. The figure may be even higher; it's just a rough guesstimate based on the numbers apprehended. And according to this article, one in two Mexicans polled has family members on our side of the 'border.' So our much-criticized wall, what there is of it, does pitifully little towards keeping intruders out. Bernd: what, exactly, is the problem? That the entire population of Mexico hasn't yet made it north to where the goodies are yet?
So what we are walling out is not much; they are coming in by the thousands day and night, 365 days a year. If you are going to weep crocodile tears over a wall, or write scathing words about how cruel the wall is, at least pick a wall that actually accomplishes the purpose. Our wall is mostly nonexistent, except for Tijuana and that little stretch along the California border.
Bernd Debusmann, Reuters reporter, like his innumerable liberal media comrades-in-arms, is either so obtuse or so disingenuous as to be unable to tell the difference between a wall to keep people in a police-state regime like East Germany once was, and a wall to keep invaders out, as the Wall of Hadrian used to be, or the Great Wall of China.
Likening the small stretch of wall on our southern 'border' to the Iron Curtain is just laughable. Is Debusmann too young to remember the days of the Iron Curtain? Or does he think that Mexico is trying to keep her citizens in, as the East Germans were? If anything, the Mexican government is pushing certain of their citizens, possibly their unwanted citizens, to cross our border and send back as much as they can loot on our side.
Are these liberal hacks, who write cookie-cutter articles on immigration every day, really that dense? I suppose it's possible; in order to embrace liberalism/leftism, intelligence is an actual hindrance. So these 'reporters' who report stories to order, and write them according to a template, probably are true believers. There is scarcely an honest word written or spoken about the immigration and borders issue in the mainstream media.
I wonder if Bernd Debusmann has a lock on his front door? Or does he helpfully leave it open in case there is a burglar, possibly a destitute illegal alien, who wants to let himself in? I wonder if the open-borders bleeding-hearts are consistent enough to remove the fences from their property and the locks from their doors and windows? After all, there are homeless people out there who might want to stake a claim to their homes, and people 'looking for a better life' who might want all those possessions they have so selfishly acquired.
As to 'what we are walling in or walling out', I know what I would like to wall out: the chaos, corruption, crime, and failure that characterize the nations to the South of us. I would like to wall out those who do not respect borders; those who believe, ignorantly, that they have a claim to this nation and its bounties; that their ancestors, whoever they might have been, were the rightful owners of America. I want to wall out those who want to change my homeland into something to their liking, without the least regard to the existing citizens of this country. I want to wall out those who would be a burden financially to an already overburdened country. I want to wall out diseases which have been so carefully and successfully eradicated from this country. I want to wall out ruthless savage gangs like MS-13.
I want to wall out those who would overpopulate my country until there is little open space or usable farmland, and those who treat the environment like a dumping ground, as we have seen the invading Mexicans do.
But so far, since a sizeable percentage of Mexico's population is in my country, and many of them brazenly walking the streets of my little town, thousands of miles from their homeland, Bernd Debusmann need not lose sleep; few Mexicans are being cruelly kept out of their rightful hunting grounds in America.
If we don't have the right to wall out, or simply close the door to anybody of our choosing, then this country is no longer our country. In fact, it's been often said that a country without borders (including walls, if need be) is not a country.
And just as I have the right, in my home, to open my door to only those I choose to welcome, and to eject anybody who arrives uninvited, sneaks in, or who refuses to leave at my request, we as the rightful people of this country have the same right. People enter or stay only at our pleasure; they have no inherent right to enter or to stay, against our will.
There are some who are now bluntly asserting that human beings should have free entry to any country they choose at any time; this is as radical and revolutionary an idea as can be. What next? Yet a lot of people seem unruffled by this idea that everyone has a 'universal human right to emigration.' This is an extreme leftist idea, and to the undiscerning, it may sound humane and compassionate, but the world would be turned upside down if that idea were to be put into practice. We are already seeing a slow-motion Camp of the Saints scenario, but we would be overwhelmed if this foolishness were declared law, or even if the odious amnesty proposals become law.
The trouble is, I am certain that this 'human right to emigrate anywhere' would really only be granted to the 'have-nots' of the world, and people who wanted to migrate away from the multicultural chaos would be denied any such right. It is meant only for the world's poor and 'diverse' populations, the people who depend on the fruits of others for their survival.
Maybe Robert Frost did not believe that 'good fences make good neighbors', and it's certain that Bernd Debusmann does not believe it, but nonetheless it is true. Perhaps we don't need fences to keep the law-abiding, decent neighbors on their side of the divide, but in a fallen world, with desperate or unscrupulous neighbors, a fence or a wall is an absolute necessity.

Labels: Immigration, Media, Mexico, Open Borders

This kind of thing should be reported and discussed much more in the mainstream media. Instead, what stories are done on the subject are feel-good pro-diversity pieces for which the MSM is notorious. Then there are the sob story articles which blame any problems on 'racism' or 'xenophobia', and which lead to PC pontificating from everybody involved, including the supposedly objective 'journalist.'
But this piece by Frank York at WND gives a much more honest account of the issues.
For the record, I think the 'refugees' are doing just what they were brought here to do. Maybe the other half of the Cloward-Piven strategy involves destroying the cohesion of the existing culture. What if the C-P strategy is not just an economic demolition project, but an effort to dissolve the people, as well? What if?
Speculation aside, I am especially pleased to see that the article mentions and credits Refugee Resettlement Watch, and quotes from blogger Ann Corcoran of that blog. She deserves a great deal of credit for the work she does, doing the work that the MSM should be doing. She has been doing a superb job over there, and I am pleased to see the recognition given her.
Way to go, Ann!

Labels: Celebrate Diversity, Ethnic Conflict, Media, Political Correctness, Race Replacement, Refugee Industry

There has been some controversy lately over the religious background of Democrat candidate Barack Obama. A story appeared, claiming that he had been educated in a madrassa in Indonesia, and was thus raised a Moslem. The story, when it first appeared, was attributed to someone in Hillary Clinton's camp, but as the MSM scurried to denounce the story as a hoax and a lie, they declared that it came from a 'right-wing' source and that it was shamelessly spread by Fox News.
The sheer number of the debunking stories is staggering; it looks as though the MSM mobilized to counter the story almost as soon as it hit the wires. One of the first denials cited, as a rebuttal, Obama's own autobiography. Now how is that an independent, objective source? Obama defenders on the Internet have cited Snopes.com as their source for disproving the story. I see a lot of blind faith in Snopes.com as the ultimate authority on the truth of any story or rumor. I have read and consulted Snopes, and it can be informative and entertaining, but hardly infallible. To my knowledge, it's just a husband-and-wife team, and they consult mostly the same sources as you and I do to get their information, so I recommend taking them with a grain of salt. A number of people have raised questions about the bias of Snopes.com.
The Snopes.com folks are human beings with the same fallibility and unconscious biases as any of us. However they do present themselves as authoritative, and are given excessive credence in many cases. My point is not that they are not to be believed, but that they should be cross-checked, and that they should not be blindly trusted as all-knowing.
So was Obama educated in a full-blown madrassa, or just in a Moslem-run school in Indonesia? This is basically what the dispute comes down to. In his own autobiography he says that he went to a Moslem school for a couple of years, and a Catholic school. Indisputably, his first name, Barack, and middle name, Hussein, are Arab/Moslem names, so there will always be that question about his roots and his loyalties. I am surprised he or his defenders have not played the 'Islamophobia' card yet, but maybe because he asserts that he is a Christian now, they have chosen to ignore the Moslem connection.
As for Obama's denial of the Islamic connection, the question should be, would he have a reason to deny or whitewash any such connection? Given the present conflict with the Islamic world, it would hardly be politically wise for any Presidential candidate to embrace Moslem roots at this point.
Here is a piece you likely won't find in the MSM, about the church which Obama apparently attends.
My intent isn't to disparage anyone's choice of churches, but strictly from a conservative perspective, a very liberal church tends to be involved deeply in liberal politics. In Christian terms, the social gospel, very much tied in with political leftism, is the hallmark of liberal Christianity. Certainly in our society Obama's religious beliefs should not disqualify him, but on the other hand, we as voters are within our rights to take religious affiliations and loyalties into account. In a world in which militant Islam is on the march, announcing its intention of establishing a worldwide caliphate and Sharia law, we are wise to consider carefully the Moslem connection of any elected official.
Here is another article that won't be likely to appear in the American media, regarding Obama's background.
Obama's candidacy will probably not be adequately scrutinized by the supine media in our country, and the GOP will tend to tread lightly with him because of his double minority background: black, with Moslem connections. The GOP risks being accused of 'racism' and Islamophobia if it makes much of his background. I've heard Republicans saying that 'Hillary will go after him', since he is her chief rival, and they seem to believe the madrassa story was her doing. They are counting on her to demolish his candidacy, but I think even Hillary will have to be careful in her criticism of Obama, since she risks offending her ultra-PC base by going after him. They may end up being running mates; it would go over well with their multicultist base.
But there should be some scrutiny of Obama because of his Moslem connections, and we can't rely on the dishonest, PC media to do the necessary examining.

Labels: Media, Obama, Political Correctness, Politics, Presidential Candidates

''By their cheese grits shall ye know them?'
On 'fair and balanced' Fox News I heard a little of a news story about a Purdue University study, claiming that Christians, as a group, are fatter than people of other faiths, and that, surprise, surprise, Baptists were the most likely to be overweight.
My first reaction was: why was such a study done? To what end? And who funds such studies? I suspect that ultimately they are taxpayer-funded. But why did Fox News find this bit of snarky junk-science newsworthy, especially with so many real news events going unreported?
So I googled the subject, and came up with this
Saving souls is serious business for Annandale, Va., pastor Steve Reynolds. So is losing weight.
Which is why he stepped out from behind the lectern during a service one recent weekend to deliver a blunt message to those crowded into the pews below.
"About 40 percent of you need to lose weight," he told his congregation at Capital Baptist Church. "When you love potluck more than God, it's serious."
And with that, the preacher, who has lost 70 pounds by relying on God and low carbs, launched a mission to lead his followers into the burgeoning world of religious dieting.
[...]Several recent studies have found that Christians are fatter than those of other faiths.
The odd thing, however, was that the Purdue Study, cited in these stories, is from 1996! So why is it back in the news now?
Weighty matter: Is religion making us fat?
Cathleen Falsani - Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago, USA - Back in the decadent early 1980s, New Wave rocker Adam Ant mocked clean living in his maddeningly catchy song, "Goody Two Shoes."
"Don't drink, don't smoke, what do ya do?" Ant taunted.
A new Purdue University study may hold the answer to Ant's question.
If they don't drink and don't smoke, what do they do?
Eat, apparently.
"America is becoming known as a nation of gluttony and obesity, and churches are a feeding ground for this problem," says Ken Ferraro, a Purdue sociology professor who studied more than 2,500 adults over a span of eight years ...'
[...]Exhibit A: The Rev. Jerry Falwell, Baptist king of the Christian right. Falwell has been accused (rightly) of being many things.
Chubby, for instance.
He may not drink or smoke, or think lusty liberal thoughts, but it looks like the good reverend has never met a plate of cheese grits he didn't love. And it may have cost him. Falwell, 73, was hospitalized last year for acute congestive heart failure. His hefty weight, doctors said at the time, wasn't helping matters.
[...]Ferraro's study also found that about 20 percent of "Fundamentalist Protestants," (Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God and Church of God); about 18 percent of "Pietistic Protestants," (Methodist, Christian Church and African Methodist Episcopal), and about 17 percent of Catholics were obese.
By contrast, about 1 percent of the Jewish population and less than 1 percent of other non-Christians, including Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others), were tipping the scales with commensurate gusto.''
And get the comments about Rev. Falwell. Now I am not a Baptist nor a particular fan of Jerry Falwell, but I notice he is one of the favorite whipping boys of the anti-Christian liberals of both parties. But why single him out for derision, such as the comment about cheese grits? And what's wrong with cheese grits, by the way?
Lately, Christians have been taking a pummeling from the media. I know; what else is new? But the anti-Christians have been in a frenzy lately, with Nancy Pelosi's daughter on a tear against Christians,and I have noticed that Fox News has devoted quite a bit of coverage to that movie of hers. Fair and balanced?
Then there's Kevin Phillips and his 'American Theocracy.' And who knows how many other such books. On the 'right', so-called, we have Andy Sullivan, with his constant ravings about 'Christianists.' which I assume is supposed to make us think of 'Islamists', because, as these people say, Christian fundamentalists are just as bad as Moslem fundamentalists.
So maybe in this atmosphere of everybody piling on the Christians, dredging up some old study about Christians being fatties is relatively trivial, but it seems, shall I say it? Mean-spirited. Maybe the 'theocrat' slur wasn't getting enough traction; not enough Americans know or care about theocrats, but everybody has a disdain of fat. And it seems to confirm the stereotype of the liberal media that 'right-wing Christians' are trailer-trash rednecks, since obesity is also part of the lower-class image they love to ascribe to Christian conservatives.
And what about the writer's snide comparison to non-Christian groups? They, of course, are all svelte and slim and healthy, while only the cheese-grits-eating fundies are singled out for disapproval.
Trivial this story may be, but I still have to wonder why it was important enough to be covered on Fox, while more important things are ignored.

Labels: Christianity, Media

The idea that the media are supposed to be aggressive and adversarial in relation to our government and the established powers is not necessarily a bad idea, even though many pro-adminstration conservatives see it as traitorous. Certainly it's necessary for a free press to take a skeptical approach and keep our government honest, at least in theory.
The problem is, our media carry this idea of the adversarial approach to an extreme, and tend to treat our own government as the enemy. But beyond that anti-government or anti-administration bias, there is an open antagonism to the American people. The American people, especially the majority, are also the enemy, judging by the content of the major media.
Read any American newspaper, or watch the cable news channels. The anti-majority bias is palpable. Points-of-view are heavily weighted in favor of marginal groups; illegal immigrants are the new heroes of the mainstream media. Each and every day, there is almost certain to be at least one story, written to tug at the heartstrings, about some poor illegal. The moral of each such story (and there is always a moral being presented, as in every sermon) is that our laws are unjust, and that America is racist and heartless. Similar stories are presented every day, and sometimes the suffering heroes are Moslems who are wrongly 'profiled' ; the moral of the story is always the same.
Now why, if the news business is a business like any other, would those in the business make it a practice to denounce the majority of their customers? Surely if one wants to attract and keep customers, this is not the way to do it. Are the media simply trying to appeal to the 'new markets' of various immigrants and other 'outsider' groups? Even so, doing so while alienating the majority seems illogical.
It's hard not to conclude that most of those in the media are 'true believers', who in a quasi-religious fashion, are devoted to the liberal agenda. They simply believe that they are more enlightened than the unwashed masses that make up the majority of Middle America, and they believe that their job is to re-educate and enlighten the ignorant public. Their condescension is evident.
The hard fact is that the media are not on our side, not on the side of the American majority.
At this moment, our country is at a crossroads; our uncontrolled borders, and the betrayal by our political leaders on this issue may well be the undoing of America. If we had an honest, free, objective media, we would have a better chance to turn things around. As it is, the media and our politicians are working against our interests, towards an agenda of their own. Too many Americans have little understanding of the seriousness of our situation, or how precarious the future of our country, and it's thanks to the media's pointed avoidance of the truth that this lack of awareness exists. Some of us, who have learned not to rely on the mainstream media, are awake and aware, but can we alert other people in time to avert disaster? We have to try; the Internet is the last bastion of free speech and free thought. The 'Net truly is democratic in that it allows for participation of all who are motivated enough to speak their minds and inform others. Our media can no longer be relied upon, being mostly in enemy hands.
Note: Here's an informative discussion from a forum of a few years ago, from the Center for Immigration Studies, on the media and immigration:

Labels: Adversarial, Media

After the article I linked to the other day, about the Chinese-American academic talking about immigrants replacing old White males, this kind of thing is becoming old hat.
Actually it's been 'old hat' (or should I say old hate) for some time now; it just seems to be receiving a tad more attention now than a few years ago, which is good, I suppose. Good, that is, if it results in people becoming more alert to what is being done. However, will that happen, or will the opposite happen, with people greeting this kind of rhetoric with a ho-hum? Another day, another diatribe denouncing old White males.
What can I say that hasn't been said many times?
I will say this: it's interesting (not surprising, though) that it takes 12 comments before someone notes the obvious: Mr. Rich's ethnicity. Obviously I know that to note his ethnicity is somewhat, shall we say, discouraged at AmRen; I gather that the idea is to court Jewish support, or perhaps not to alienate the more sensitive, politically correct readers. But it is disturbing to read comment after comment describing Rich as a self-hating White man, or a Disingenuous White Liberal.
I think that if we subtracted certain ethnic groups from those we call 'self-hating White liberals' we would find that there are far fewer actual 'self-haters' than is supposed. Or are there?
This reminds me of a recent post from Vox Day titled 'America A is no more', "America A" being what I have called Old America.
He notes how Tom Friedman of the NY Times laments the decline of this country, yet over the years, Friedman has avidly supported everything that contributed to this decline:
''This is extraordinarily ironic, coming as it does from an elite Jewish liberal. He quite clearly doesn't recognize that it is the very causes he has championed for decades, from diversity, equality, and secularization to free trade, immigration, and globalization, that have so weakened America in the manner that concerns him now. While he is correct in saying that a successful and powerful America committed to its core values could again become a world leader, his definition of those core values almost surely includes those values that have proven so pernicious to American success, power, and world leadership.
The North American landmass isn't going to disappear. There will still be Americans proper - descendants of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who founded the nation on principles derived from the Bible and the Magna Carta - as well as those who call themselves Americans but have no cultural, ethnic, or religious connection to the historical America that is now essentially gone. The results of the great experiment are now sufficiently observable that we can pronounce the failure of the Viral America hypothesis.
It is now clear that one cannot catch Americanism. Just as the Irish, German, Scandinavian, and Italian immigrants never fully grasped the English concepts of liberty and limited government*, thereby transforming what had been a voluntary union of sovereign states into an involuntary empire ruled by a sovereign central government, the subsequent wave of immigration from Mexico and other third-world nations has transformed what had been a rich and powerful empire into an impoverished and corrupt one.
[...]
From the New York Times: "In 1980, the foreign-born population in the United States was about 4.5 million. By 2000, it had reached 11.3 million, bringing the foreign-born population to about 13 percent of the total. In the early 20th century, after the last big wave of immigration to the United States, immigrants had reached 15 percent of the population."
Therefore, Friedman is wrong as one cannot expect to make America A work when it has been transformed into America A + (M+I2+G+S+J+3). America A no longer exists. This is the B-Ark nation.''
I read the comments on the blog piece when it was first posted, and I found it a depressing discussion, as the consensus seemed to be that Anglo-Saxon colonial stock Americans did not really have that much to do with America. And this from self-described descendants of the later immigrants. Everybody wants to create his own mental 'America' in which his ethnic group has pride of place: it was really the Scots-Irish who made America great, one person says, or the Germans, or the Irish, and on and on, which proves Vox's point to some extent.
There are many instances of people like Friedman, Rich, Wise, and so many other journalists, academics, and politicians, who see themselves as apart from and in opposition to historic White Christian America, and work to weaken it, consciously or not.
And in regards to the comments at Vox Day's blog on that piece, never do I feel so alienated from my 'fellow Americans' as when I am reading that my ancestors really had no significant contribution to this country. I never used to feel estranged from descendants of the later immigrant waves, believing what I was taught as a child, that we are 'loyal Americans all'. Once upon a time that may have been so, because people were taught the true history of this country, and everybody assimilated more or less to the existing culture and traditions -- which were Anglo-Protestant by origin. Whether one likes that fact or not, it is just a fact. But now, whether influenced by liberal rewritings of history along ethnic lines, or whether because many Americans now make up their own subjective personal history of America, there is just too little common ground.
So America A may be gone, never to return. And I agree with Vox that the old America cannot be sustained by other peoples who had no part or lot in the original. But if, IF we are ever to recover our country, or try to rebuild it from the wreckage, we will need some common basis on which to unite and build. As of now, I don't see much of that, except perhaps in the South. And coincidentally (or not), the South was the area which had the greatest degree of homogeneity among White people, having not been as affected by mass immigration.
But as of now, we have people like Rich, who feel estranged from traditional America interpreting events for us, claiming to represent us, claiming to be our voice. If America is ever to be resurrected, we will have to find our own voice, and a united one at that.

Labels: American History, Biased, Divide And Rule, Ethnic Division, Mass Immigration, Media, Old America, Race Replacement

The Washington Times editorial writers give their post-mortem on the amnesty bill, and declare that it was killed by the American people.
The people killed amnesty
The justifiably furious reaction of the American public, which deluged senators with telephone calls, e-mails and faxes, forced the Senate to reverse itself yesterday and send the amnesty bill crashing to defeat � a potentially fatal blow. It was a devastating setback for the Bush administration and its Democratic Party allies, in particular Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Ted Kennedy.
In addition to being an extraordinary substantive triumph for the American people, it was a huge victory for the conservative movement. Talkers such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and many others played an indispensable role in making available the research by the Heritage Foundation and NumbersUSA and analysis from editorial pages such as this one to tens of millions of Americans in a very short period of time. But ironically, by demonstrating in a powerful way its ability to reach and educate the public about the specific problems with the bill, talk radio has also made liberal politicians like Sen. Dianne Feinstein even more determined to revive the so-called Fairness Doctrine (the equal-time policy enforced by the Federal Communications Commission until it was eliminated in 1987 at the urging of President Reagan) in an effort to take away the one part of the mass media that conservatives dominate.''
They are right about the people delivering the coup de grace to the bill, by means of their calls, e-mails, and faxes.
However does talk radio in general deserve as much credit as this op-ed piece gives them? I don't listen to most of the personalities mentioned. Rush Limbaugh, however, I know has been a Johnny-come-lately to the borders issue, having been conspicuous by his absence from the debate until very recently, when he finally deigned to address it. And from what I hear, he was glibly predicting the amnesty bill would 'sail through' the Senate. Rush obviously underestimated the American people. Hannity has covered the border issue on Fox News, but to my knowledge, he is one of those people who makes quite a show of saying that he opposes only illegal immigration. In fact, most of the talk show personalities fit that category. Still, credit should be given where due, even if these talk radio people often play it safe and allow only politically correct criticisms of immigration. For instance, it's pretty much a given that any criticism of legal immigration is not allowed; only illegal immigration is fair game for debate. That is a huge problem that must be dealt with; if the open borders fanatics (and that is what they are) decide to forget amnesty for the time being, and just work on expanding legal immigration, what response will the 'respectables' have to that, since they have committed themselves to opposing only illegal immigration?
Too much of the debate on immigration is confined within the politically correct bounds of what is allowed to be discussed. If talk radio is to be really useful the debate should be broadened to include the full range of conservative opinion. Those who criticize talk radio for being 'too conservative' are clueless; the majority of talk radio hosts personalities are moderate/right-liberal.
But as far as mobilizing people to oppose the amnesty, the blogosphere has been a real force, I think. The old media, including the Washington Times, seem to have a blind spot where the blogging world is concerned. Some are of the belief that only a relative few log onto the Internet for news and discussion. I believe that more people than ever are turning to the Internet for these things, having found the old media to be hopelessly biased when covering political matters, and too focused on junk news when they are not force-feeding us propaganda. The Internet has created a group of very well-informed people, and these people in turn are exerting an influence on their friends and family who may not be Internet-savvy themselves.
VDare, Michelle Malkin, FAIR, and others who focus on the immigration issue have played a big role. The Internet is the only news source where you can access a full range of opinions and commentary. I think for many of us, the Internet expanded our horizons beyond the limited world of spoon-fed politics in the old media, including cable news channels.
So now that the people have killed amnesty, or at least stopped it in its tracks, what next? This should be an occasion for the people to feel their oats, and realize the power that resides in acting as a united group. The American people, as I've said before, are like Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians. We have for too long relinquished our strength, and allowed ourselves to be rendered immobile. There is still considerable power in a united majority.
Historian Will Durant said
'The political machine works because it is a united minority acting against a divided majority.''
If the majority in this country only realized the power that inheres in the majority when that majority acts as one, we might be able to rediscover our strength, and break the self-imposed bonds that restrain us.

Labels: Amnesty, Blogosphere, Majority, Media, Politics, Talk Radio

Homeland Security won't release papers on border agents' case
Sara A. Carter, of the Inland Daily Bulletin in California, deserves credit for doing yeoman's work on border issues and immigration. She does consistently good work on these issues; it's a shame that she doesn't receive wider attention. Truth and honesty on the borders/immigration issue are in short supply, as the media drones just crank out endless sob stories and template stories on the poor fearful immigrants.
I post the article linked above not just because I admire Sara Carter's writing, but because she is putting some facts out there which need to be read.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told the Daily Bulletin on Wednesday that Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner has refused to deliver documents confirming his office's claims that Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean admitted they "were out to shoot Mexicans," and knowingly shot Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, a drug smuggler, in a border incident nearly two years ago.
McCaul and three other House members met with Skinner on Sept. 26, 2006, to discuss the agents' case.
The Daily Bulletin obtained a confidential Office of Inspector General memo from an interview Compean gave to investigators on March 18, 2005.
The memo, dated April 4, 2005, supports the agent's claim that he believed his life was in danger when he tried to apprehend the Mexican drug smuggler on Feb. 17, 2005.'' [Emphasis mine]
The article notes that McCaul and his colleagues are demanding the documents supporting the Homeland Security department's version of events.
I want to weigh the facts and the evidence in this case," McCaul said. "Either it is total arrogance or gross incompetence on the part of the Inspector General's office. If what (the DHS) told us was a lie, or if they misrepresented the facts on this case to members of Congress, we are going to hold them accountable."
Full transcripts from Ramos and Compean's trial last spring still have not been made available to Congress or the public. According to McCaul, repeated requests for the transcripts since November have been answered with excuses.
[...]According to the memorandum, seven other agents were on the scene at the time of the shooting, including two supervisors whom Ramos and Compean both stated knew about the incident.
No other agents at the scene that day were prosecuted, and some were given immunity to testify against Ramos and Compean.
Agents and supervisors are required to file a written report if they participate in or know of an incident, according to TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents nearly 11,000 Border Patrol agents.
"The steadfast refusal of the departments of Justice and Homeland Security to provide relevant information to Congress and the public about why Border Patrol agents Compean and Ramos were prosecuted causes people to wonder what they are trying to hide," Bonner said. ''
If the official version of what happened is true, then why the stonewalling and the reluctance to cooperate with the House members who are investigating? These are questions I would like to see answered by the legions of GOP loyalists on the internet forums and blogs, who are trashing Ramos and Compean, and defending the administration's actions.
I've noticed that in discussing the Ramos-Compean story lately, many people are spreading the DOJ's version of events, which paints Ramos and Compean as rogue agents who broke rules and laws and then covered up their wrongdoing. I am dismayed that so many people, especially Republicans, are eager to buy into the spin. Of course, given that many Republicans are blind party loyalists who think that their leaders can absolutely do no wrong, and given that many of these faux conservatives are open-borders partisans, it isn't so surprising. For some people, their party loyalty and their loyalty to the administration is very much on the level of religious faith; it's an unquestioning, blind, passive faith, and they are angered by anyone who commits the heresy of criticizing anything 'their guy' does.
The blogosphere can play a part in getting both sides of the story out there, since the national media have not given this case the scrutiny it demands.
For a detailed account, here's a link to a letter by Joe Loya, father-in-law of Ignacio Ramos. He gives a detailed account of what happened, from Ramos' point of view. It's worth reading.
Let's not let the spinmeisters and party hacks dominate the discussion on this story.

Labels: Border Patrol, Media

This bizarre incident happened a few days ago, and when I saw the headline, I thought: this is some kind of crazed White liberal female. It appears I was right.
At first reading of the story, I laughed out loud, but it really is sad, because it's symptomatic of so many things.
You've got Hispanophilia, diversity-mania, reckless spending (who's going to pay off those credit cards?) and some misandry thrown in, too. Notice the woman was ''slurring obscenities about men'', who were excluded from her big-spending good deed.
Ultimately, though, I think she's a metaphor for our out-of-control, demented society, wanting to do good for the downtrodden, with no regard for the cost or for paying the piper when the time comes.
It would be funny if it were not so tragic for most of us.

Labels: Liberalism, Media, Xenophilia

Our cotton-candy-fluffy-bunny news
...To confirm the permanence of our society's deterioration, news of Lindsay Lohan, as well as the meltdown of Britney Spears, spread across TV screens Thursday and Friday like a bad virus on your computer. Yet these are these stories Americans want. We clamor for news about our favorite celebrities. Does she trim her nails herself? Did he have a weekend fling on the beach? Will they get married, or just continue living together for the next 12 years?
Why are we so shallow?''
Are we so shallow?
I've blogged about the issue addressed in this article before: our junk-food news, or as Jonathan Krive calls it, our cotton candy news.
I question whether we are fed this stuff because of public demand, or because for whatever reason, our media elites want to feed us this non-nourishing, empty-calories substitute for real news of importance.
There are elements of both aspects: if people are demanding this non-nutritive filler as their 'news'-- and I suspect a certain segment of the public does prefer it -- it is because of decades of dumbing-down, in our media and in our school system and our popular culture generally.
Still, I encounter plenty of people, not overly educated or highbrow people, high-school educated, not hard news junkies, who express disgust at the surfeit of the 'bimbo' stories. Outside of Lohan's fanboys and fangirlies, I think many people wonder why the news channels waste so much airtime on Lohan's misbehavior. It is not just overeducated, ultra-serious people who are disgusted with the cotton-candy, bimbo-oriented 'news' on Fox, MSNBC, and CNN. It is average people too who are sick of the fluff and nonsense that fills our news channels and those supermarket magazines.
However it is probably true that the younger generations in particular, having grown up in a trivia-driven, celebrity-fawning culture, are more accepting of it. And these younger generations have, not coincidentally, grown up with an educational system that neglects the basics and focuses on making kids 'feel good about themselves'. There is also an overemphasis on Politically Correct ideology at the expense of teaching young people about their own heritage and culture. I've heard from some of them that they spent more time in school learning about (probably apocryphal) African kingdoms than about the founding of our country, or about the English traditions from which our unique American system derives.
How can young people take an interest in the actual news of what is going on around the world, and hope to decipher it, without a grounding in history and political science and geography?
Krive, in the linked article, quotes from Joseph Farah's piece on 'The dumbing down of America.'
In that piece, Farah quotes questions from an eighth grade exam from the year 1895.
For example, these questions on American History:
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865?''
Now I, despite having had a good solid education back in the olden days, might have to struggle a little on some of those questions, but I wonder how many could answer more than one or two nowadays?
Back in the era in which that test was written, an eighth-grade education was all that many Americans would have; they had a graduation ceremony at the end of the eighth grade school year, and received certificates, following which many of them would proceed to some kind of apprenticeship in a trade or livelihood of some sort; only the more academically talented would go on to high school, and even fewer of those on to college. That was perhaps a better system. It's often been said that an eighth-grade education then was better than today's high school education. Nowadays, even the high school education has been woefully dumbed down, so as to allow as many as possible to 'graduate', and then go on to college, where they are really out of their depth -- despite the fact that college, too, is watered down and geared to the lowest common denominator.
Even when I attended college in the 70s, my counselor, in helping me put together my class schedule, commented that few students were choosing a classical education, with basic courses like World History, English literature, and so on; most seemed to be choosing psychology and sociology and 'relevant' courses like Minority History and Women's History. Once the old core requirements were dropped and dumbed down and the politically correct pabulum offered, most students opted out of the basics and chose the fluff. Nowadays we read of classes having to do with the 'gay experience' and pornography, as well as the frivolous courses on popular culture, which is, after all, ephemeral.
The goal these days seems to be to grind out as many 'graduates' as possible, rather than to truly educate and enlighten the majority of students, or to fully develop the talents of the more able. And the goal is also to make students 'feel good about themselves' by forcing some kind of pretended 'equality' among people, with the mediocre student and the laggard not made to feel inferior by some inconsiderate prodigy.
So whose interest does it serve to make people more shallow and ignorant, or to focus their attention on the antics of drug-addled 'celebrities'? Are we fed this stuff because the media elites truly think it is newsworthy? Is it simply eye-candy, because people want to look at 'beautiful people' like Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan? Or is it meant to distract us from the real, behind-the-scenes, world-changing events? Is it just a sideshow to keep us occupied and to further dumb us down?
Or is it merely another side-effect of the feminizing of our society? It does seem that many women are more focused on the doings of other women, the clothes they wear, the hairstyles, the plastic surgery, their private lives, who they sleep with and/or marry, and so on? I'm a female and I know that not all women are into this gossip as news thing, but a good percentage of them are.
Just look at the TV channels which are 'women's channels': the Lifetime Movie channel, which specializes in soap-operaesque movies about domestic abuse, troubled romances, and so on, and the Oxygen network, which takes a relentlessly PC, 'you-go-girl' look at the world, with focus on 'women's problems': relationships, fashion, sex, body image.
Back in the 1970s, in the era in which feminism was commanding so much attention, Irish writer Desmond Fennell
wrote a piece which asked an interesting question. I cannot locate anything of the piece online, and I no longer have it, but his question was essentially 'why do feminists act as if woman has no soul?' The question was in response to the new 'feminist' talk shows which were all the rage then: there were many such talk shows, hosted by some earnest feminist, interviewing other women of course, on subjects of interest to women. Fennell, if I am recalling correctly, pointed out that the women never discussed deep spiritual or philosophical questions, but only things like women's health, relationships, body image, and feminist politics and letters. They seldom seemed to deal with the wider, more inclusive world. The same gynocentric concerns are served up by Oprah and her ilk today. Fennell pointed out that the feminists criticized the 'misogynistic' prejudices of early theologians who questioned whether 'women had no souls' -- and yet the feminists themselves seemed to corroborate that opinion by dwelling only on parochial female concerns, mostly of a fleshly nature. That same observation can be made today.
But I stop short of blaming only my fellow females for this phenomenon of junk news. Maybe the reasons for this trend include a little of all of the above.
So what, if anything, can we do about it, if we don't like it? The usual answer is 'just turn the TV off', which may not be bad advice, but even those of us who turn off, tune out, and drop into the real world instead of the TV world, still have to deal with the reality which is fed and fostered by the trashy content of the media. And if we have children, those children are affected by the unfortunate trends, unless we truly do drop out and homeschool them and isolate them from the worst excesses of junk culture.
But my concern is the dire state of our country, and of the West in general, and the fact that the cotton candy news is acting to dull people's awareness, to merely keep them entertained and distracted. The junk news is empty calories, taking the place of necessary mental nourishment.
Ultimately this junk news diet will be deadly to our Republic, producing, as it does, dulled and disconnected citizens who lack information or critical thinking skills to make responsible decisions about our future.
Does it help to write to the networks or other news media and make your concerns known? Or will they respond once they lose sufficent viewers and readers? We read every day about how the dead-tree media, the old print newspapers, are losing readers at an alarming rate. Has this changed how they do business? I see no evidence of that yet. And with cable TV, news channels are not subject to the same pressures as newspapers, considering that cable channels are carried as part of a package, so that the channels with a tiny viewership are not eliminated from the lineup.
The only hopeful sign I can point to is that people are slowly getting disenchanted and downright fed up with their TV news and newspapers, and many are looking elsewhere, as on the internet. And now the blogosphere is an alternate source for news and especially opinion and analysis not allowed by the narrow standards of the controlled media.
I can only hope that the TV news media and the dead tree media will become increasingly irrelevant and obsolete, and that people will turn to sources which treat them as sentient, thinking human beings and not as dull-witted units of consumption.

Labels: Celebrity Culture, Education, Feminism, Junk News, Media, News, Trivia

From LiveScience.com, we learn -- surprise, surprise -- that 'Anti-Prejudice Campaigns Can Increase Bias.'
Campaigns to reduce prejudice may backfire if they take the bossy approach and tell people what to do, new research indicates.
In experiments, researchers looked at two different approaches to persuading people to reduce prejudice. One type, the controlling approach, tells people what they should do, while the second explains the advantages of being non-prejudiced. They found that participants responded much better to the second approach; meanwhile, the controlling approach actually increased prejudice.''
I think most of us could have spared the researchers the trouble and expense; I could have told them this, and so could most people with any powers of observation.
So what would we call the approach that is being used 24/7 on the TV-watching public, or the movie-viewing public, or the newspaper- and magazine-reading public? It's always 'bossy' and sledge-hammer subtle, if you ask me.
The people who bombard us with these messages think they are being subtle, perhaps, when they present us with these little vignettes or 'heartwarming' images -- like the one in the article. The idea is: this is the new normal. This is what you should aspire to. This is the 'trend of the future.' If your family does not look like this, why not? Are you a hater/bigot/racist/extremist?
An expert is quoted in the article as saying:
''...people need to feel that they are freely choosing to be non-prejudiced, rather than having it forced upon them."
Sorry, but anybody with sense knows that it is being forced upon us; only the most brain-dead think that they are 'freely choosing' the 'diversity' and miscegeny promoted by the powers-that-be.
I think that all the heavy-handed propaganda in the media played a big part in causing me to reject the 'celebrate diversity or else' message long ago. Nobody has a right to try to dictate, or even shape, how we feel about others. And nobody has a right to invalidate the life-experiences that have in fact shaped our feelings or opinions of others, either individuals or groups of people.
Why do the propagandists not back off, if they realize they are provoking resistance to their agenda among a certain portion of the people? Or are they trying to push us into rebelling?
There seems to be scant evidence that the lovey-dovey ''one big human family'' propaganda is having any effect at all among the 'diversities' out there. All the recent flash mob attacks seem to indicate that the 'youths' out there do not think 'there is just one race, the human race' or that 'we are all the same under the skin.' But then they are not the targets of the diversity-pushing meddlers and peddlers out there. The targets, as always, are Whites who have not volunteered to be blended out of existence just yet.

Labels: Compulsory Diversity, Cultural Marxism, Diversity Is Strength, Indoctrination, Media, Propaganda

Peggy Noonan has written a column which almost sounds like she is opposing amnesty, but which is really a paean to immigrants; her usual gushing mixed in with phony tough talk.
I've interspersed my comments in bold and in brackets below.
Slow down and absorb
Why do people want to come here? Same reasons as a hundred years ago. For a job. For an opportunity. To rise. To be in a place where one generation you can be a bathroom attendant at a Brooklyn store and the next your boy can be the star of "Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour," with everyone in the neighborhood listening on the radio, or, today, "American Idol" with everyone watching and a million dollar contract in the wings. To be in a place of weird magic where the lightning strikes. Boom. You got the job in the restaurant. Crack. Now you're the manager.
[Sometimes Peggy is downright weird. Where does she get these ideas? From corny B-movies? And the allusion to 'Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour' -- few people these days even recognize that allusion, and what the heck does it have to do with the illegal invasion, Peggy? And by the way: I don't buy that today's immigrants have the same motives as my ancestors. They came to a wilderness and created a civilized society from scratch. That's a little different than sneaking into an established country illegally and asking for handouts. But let's let Peggy continue:]
I asked myself a question this week and I realized the answer is "Only one." The question is: Have I ever known an immigrant to America who is lazy? I have lived on the East Coast all my life, mostly in New York, and immigrants both legal and illegal have been and are a part of my daily life, from my childhood when they surrounded me, to an adulthood in which, they, well, surround me. And the only lazy one I knew was a young woman, a European, not mature enough to be fully herself, who actually wanted to be a good worker but found nightlife too alluring and hangovers too debilitating.
But she was the only one. And I think she went home.
Everyone else who comes here works hard, grindingly hard, and I admire them. But it's more than that; I love them and I'm rooting for them. When I see them in church, (it is Filipino women who taught me the right posture for prayer; Central Americans helped teach me the Bible) I want to kiss their hands. I want to say, "Thank you." They have enriched my life and our country's.
[Peggy lives in a dream world, truly, if she thinks that lazy immigrants do not exist, 'except for one.' I've known immigrants who had little work ethic, bad attitudes, and an entitlement mentality. Ask anyone who works in a social services agency. All immigrants are not plaster saints, except in Peggy Noonan's gauzy, glamor-lensed world of idealized 'hard-working' immigrants. And if she could not have learned to pray, or learned her Bible, without immigrants to teach her, that is sad. Just sad. Plenty of Americans managed those things without having our moral betters from foreign lands to show us. And if Peggy's life would not be rich without immigrants, how did our -- excuse me, my -- forefathers ever survive, without all those enriching immigrants? I guess their America was grey, dull, drab, and impoverished, before all the huddled masses arrived to enrich our lives, along with Peggy's grandparents. Immigrants to the rescue, huh, Peggy?]
[...]So what should we do?
We should stop, slow down, and absorb.''
[Peggy goes on to say that we should 'Americanize' the immigrants; start teaching the story of our country again, teach them why they are part of something good here. Fine, Peggy, but I have a suspicion that the kind of history YOU and your fellow liberals would teach them is 'America is a nation of immigrants; the Statue of Liberty embodies America, diversity has made us great, immigrants built America" and so on; the usual sentimental, maudlin, PC twaddle that has encouraged us to passively allow mass illegal immigration in the first place.
Then, Peggy cuts to the chase, saying:]
Here is the truth: America has never deported millions of people, and America never will deport millions of people.
It's not what we do. It's not who we are. It's not who we want to be. The American people will never accept evening news pictures of sobbing immigrants being torn from their homes and put on a bus. We wouldn't accept it because we have hearts, and as much as we try to see history in the abstract, we know history comes down to the particular, to the sobbing child in the bus. We don't round up and remove.
[...]We do the small discrete things a nation can do to make the overall situation better. For instance: "You commit a crime? You are so out of here." And "Here, let me help you learn English."
[No, Peggy, I guess we won't ever deport anyone as long as there are so many Peggy Noonans out there to protect the illegals and to stir up emotion over them. Our ancestors, though, would have done it; they knew that sometimes tough decisions had to be taken. Such is life. And by the way: why would there be sobbing children involved? If the whole family goes home together, and they would, then who would be torn apart? Peggy, here's a novel thought: deporting simply means to SEND THEM HOME. Since when is sending someone home the height of cruelty?
Peggy, you are old enough to remember when occasionally some immigrant fell afoul of the law: some Mafia figure or sometimes even a petty criminal -- and they were put on a ship to the Old Country. Did that break up families? Maybe; but our society was tougher then, and we weren't the handwringers and weepers that we are today. So we sent people HOME. And guess what? Life went on. America survived and was the better for it. The deportees survived, presumably, back at HOME. With their relatives and friends and kin in the Old Country. And the sky did not fall, and the Statue of Liberty did not shed tears.
But back to Planet Peggy:]
Let's take some time and find out if the immigrants who are here see their wages click up and new benefits kick in as the endless pool stops expanding. It would be good to see them gain.
[...]Digest, absorb, teach. Settle in, settle down, protect our country.
Happy Memorial Day."
It would be good to see the immigrants gain? Really? I would call it a good thing to see Americans gain. There are plenty of Americans whose wages have been depressed by immigrant labor; there are too many Americans who have lost jobs and livelihoods because of immigration, legal and illegal. I want to see Americans gain, Peggy. Let Mexico worry about Mexicans, let Somalia worry about Somalians, and China about the Chinese. My place, and yours, in a just and sane world, is to take care of our own.
What a radical concept.
Peggy Noonan is one of those people who is labeled a 'conservative' -- someone please remind me why? What conservative principles does she uphold or embody? In all the important respects, this woman is a liberal flibbertigibbet. She is forever gushing about immigrants, and telling us about her Irish immigrant roots and her warm and wonderful life in multicultural Manhattan.
Yes, I know she was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and later, George Bush the elder ,and unless I am mistaken, she was the one who crafted some of Bush père's loopier phrases, like "a thousand points of light".
She is a good writer in a sort of fluffy, twee kind of way, but give me the plainspokenness and common sense of a Phyllis Schlafly any day over Miss Noonan's cotton candy nonsense. Peggy would probably be a crackerjack fiction writer; she could crank out lots of corny melodramas involving hard-working immigrants enriching the drab lives of dull whitebread Americans.
The Peggy Noonans of this world are the reason WHY we give in to all the demands made on us by the world. The sentimentalist, bleeding-hearts like her, who see everybody as just wonderful, are the reason why Western countries are being overrun by immigrants and riven by social division and conflict: because weepy-eyed sentimentality is stripping us of our common sense and natural self-protective instinct. Our countries now have a dominant group of soft-hearted, soft-headed, compassionate-to-a-fault, do-gooders and pollyannas. These people, whether or not they acknowledge it, are enabling the cynical corporate interests who want mass immigration.
And many of these busybody, we-are-the-world liberals are Republicans. Where is the party that represents the old, muscular, don't-tread-on-me America? Instead we have immigrant-besotted liberals like Noonan wanting to kiss immigrants' hands. What is it with Noonan and the hand-kissing? She wrote that same phrase about immigrants in a column about last year's confrontational Mexican-flag-waving protests. Bizarre. The immigrants are marching with Mexican flags and angry slogans about gringos going back to Europe, and Peggy wants to kiss their hands.
Peggy Noonan, far from convincing me that we should welcome all those immigrants, has only convinced me that the Republican party has far too many goofy people like her, who want to rescue and 'thank' all those colorful immigrants, and she has convinced me that unless we find an alternative to the GOP, we as a country are sunk.
No offense to anyone from New York, especially lifelong New Yorkers, but living in a city which is so very much unlike the rest of America tends to lead to an acceptance of multiculturalism. I am truly convinced that many lifelong New Yorkers truly do not see what the rest of us see: the drastic remaking of America. Those of us who grew up in what many New Yorkers call 'flyover country' remember an America which bore no resemblance to the polyglot, United Nations atmosphere which New Yorkers live and breathe. Maybe to New Yorkers it is a natural and desirable thing to be a minority in 'your' country, but the rest of us are decidedly uncomfortable with that; we don't want the America we know and love to be changed, without our consent, into something different and something in fact hostile to us.
If this country breaks apart due to this massive social engineering experiment being performed on us, we may see the country divided on an urban/rural basis, with big multicultural, heavily ethnic cities versus heartland, traditional America. I know which one I would prefer to be in. Noonan and her fellow xenophiles can live in the teeming cities with hundreds of nationalities and languages if they like, but me, I like my America American.
Peggy and her ilk can look down on me and feel superior to me all they want to; I know where my allegiances are: to my forefathers and my kin and my heritage. She and those who swoon over immigrants are free to dwell among them; in my America we believe in freedom of association. Her America does not.

Labels: Amnesty, Gop, Illegal Immigration, Media, Melting Pot, Multiculturalism

A while back, I read this piece about the decline of copy editors.
...As newspapers lose money and readers, they have been shedding great swaths of expensive expertise. They have been forced to shrink or eliminate the multiply redundant levels of editing that distinguish their kind of journalism from what you find on TV, radio and much of the Web. Copy editors are being bought out or forced out; they are dying and not being replaced.
Webby doesn�t necessarily mean sloppy, of course, and online news operations will shine with all the brilliance that the journalists who create them can bring. But in that world of the perpetual present tense � post it now, fix it later, update constantly � old-time, persnickety editing may be a luxury in which only a few large news operations will indulge. It will be an artisanal product, like monastery honey and wooden yachts.''
In other words, with the disappearance of old-time 'persnickety editing', quality will decline. I'd say it's already happening, not only in the open bias of the news media, but in the increasing numbers of errors, sloppy grammar, and even bad spelling. The copy editors who still exist, and who are not yet 'outsourced' to India, God help us, seem not to have the strict standards of the old days.
That's no surprise; as I often lament on this blog, standards in general are under siege; we live in a rebellious age, an age in which 'individual self-expression' is king, and in which standards are seen as repressive, unfair, biased, and elitist.
Our obsession with being 'non-judgmental' has reached every area of life.
When I was in college, before I declared a major, I considered linguistics. However I found that in the introductory linguistics class I took, the orthodoxy was that 'prescriptive' linguistics was bad, and was passé. The ideal was supposed to be simply 'descriptive' linguistics, which does not judge how people use language, and above all does not lay down or enforce rules of grammar, usage, or spelling, but simply describes. No dialect of English is the standard; all are equal and equally 'proper' or valid. Language is also an 'evolving', living thing which should not be ossified by rules and standards. But is our language evolving or going backwards?
I've noticed certain misspellings and grammar errors that seem to be endemic on the Internet, whereas I had never seen them previously. Now, don't get me wrong; I make mistakes. I don't claim to be without sin here. Sometimes I slip up with the keyboard; I spell better than I type. So I make mistakes, though Firefox's built-in spell checker catches them for me usually. But here are a few examples of those viral Internet solecisms:
'Wrecking havoc' -- or in some cases, 'reeking havoc' instead of 'wreaking havoc.'
'Wreckless' instead of 'reckless.' This one is particularly humorous to me; when we read of someone being charged with 'wreckless driving', does the writer think that the wayward driver is being charged for not having had any accidents? I suspect this solecism may have had its origin with the 1980s rock musician 'Wreckless Eric.'
'Reign in' - this one is seen so very frequently that I suspect it will take over and replace the correct phrase, 'rein in.' I actually saw someone use the correct phrase 'rein in' over on the Mudcat Forum, and for a moment it looked wrong to me, since I'm so used to the incorrect spelling. The metaphor refers to 'reining in' a horse, and has nothing to do with 'reigning' as in ruling.
'One in the same' for 'one and the same.' This one is prevalent too.
'Tounge' for tongue. I think it must be misspelled at least half the time.
'Here, here!' instead of the phrase, 'Hear! Hear!'
'Baffoon' for 'buffoon.' Is a 'baffoon' supposed to be a cross between a baboon and a buffoon?
'Shoe-in' for 'shoo-in.'
'Toe-headed' instead of the correct 'tow-headed.' I suppose it's understandable that many people today are unfamiliar with the term 'tow', meaning flax. 'Tow-headed' people are those who used to be called in archaic language 'flaxen-haired', having very pale blond hair. Since there seem to be fewer and fewer such individuals in our country these days, maybe we will have no use for the term 'tow-headed' or 'flaxen-haired' soon anyway.
'Pour over' as in 'pouring over old documents'. What liquid, I always wonder, is being poured over the documents? The word, as I am sure my readers know, is 'pore'.
'Hypocracy' for 'hypocrisy'. Would 'hypocracy' refer to rule by hypocrites?
'Hoards' for 'hordes' .
'Boarder' for 'border.' As in frequently-seen phrases like this: 'hoards of illegals are crossing the boarder every day.'
Those last two would not be caught by spell checker, since they are words, but just homonyms for the desired word.
And then there are the gramatically tortured phrases like these real-life examples I've seen:
'Being a second-class citizen at home, America was the perfect place for the Scots-Irish.'
Or how about this one: 'Charged with child abuse, four psychiatrists diagnosed him with schizophrenia.'
And this one: 'Scared to death and shaking I took her home.' This sentence was supposed to convey that 'she' was the one scared to death and shaking; not the writer.
What is it about the above few sentences which so many people seem to struggle with? I see these errors more and more all the time, and not just among average people posting on blogs or forums; I see them in newspaper articles, magazine articles, and hear them spoken by educated people. Obviously even the highly educated are not exempt from making such mistakes. The problem is, though, that these mistakes seem just fine to most people when they read or hear them.
Another thing that seems to give most people problems is this kind of thing:
'...as reported to she and her husband.'
''The prize money was split between he and I.'
It seems that everybody is afraid to say 'to her and her husband' or 'between him and me.'
I suspect that people have been conditioned to think that, since sentences like 'Him and me went' are ignorant, then the phrase 'him and me' is not a legitimate phrase anywhere.
I don't advocate becoming a language vigilante; nobody likes to be corrected publicly, or in a tactless way.I don't go around correcting people, especially people I don't know well. I do think we as parents should correct our children, but in a gentle way. Needless to say, teachers and copy editors are paid to teach and to correct, and I suspect they are too concerned with harming somebody's 'self-esteem' so they let errors slip by.
The English language is one of the richest and most nuanced languages in the world. The sheer number of words at our disposal in the English language is quite staggering. And I suppose that in itself is part of the problem; so many words to remember, and to differentiate.
It's a shame that with such an expressive language we neglect it, and fail to develop and use the full potential that is there.
I suppose it's inevitable with the decline of our educational system, and the general dumbing-down of our culture, that our language is becoming less and less precise and careful. Maybe in the overall scheme of things, these matters are trivial, but I do believe that language shapes thought as well as thought shaping language. Both work together. The more precise and specific we can be with our language, the better and the more clearly we communicate.

Labels: Declining Standards, Dumbing Down, Education, English Language, Media