In which I welcome myself back to my blog

I’m happy to see that it hasn’t been quite as long as I’d thought since I posted to this blog.  I’m thrilled, actually, because it’s seemed like years.  And for me the past 6 months have been basically an eternal horror show, but maybe more on that later.

For this re-inaugural post, I’d just like to point out my very first post and say “ripped from the headlines”?  Try pasted in to the headlines, or crowbarred in, or grafittied in, or something.

How about a total news black out, on the trial of a man, a “doctor” accused of multiple murders.

Kermit Gosnell, MD a person who kept the feet of the fetuses whose demises he assured in glass jars; a man who has no defenders left, except for those in the mainstream media.

Why doesn’t the NAACP have faith in Black People?

The recently reported remarks of Ms. Charlette Manning, the chairwoman of Women in the NAACP, caught my ear the other day.

After Mitt Romney spoke at the NAACP convention she said “You cannot possibly talk about jobs for black people at the level he’s coming from. He’s talking about entrepreneurship, savings accounts — black people can barely find a way to get back and forth from work.”

Now, before I get to my main point let me say this about myself.  I am a white person and right about soon, if gas prices do not come down hard and fast I will be pretty much unable to find my own way back and forth to work, so I can really relate to such concerns.  And no, I am not kidding or even exaggerating.  When I moved to my current location, one hour and 40 miles (one way) to my job gas cost $2.00 a gallon.  Then it went up, then it came down, now it’s back up.  If it doesn’t get back to a lot closer to $2.0o rather than $4.00, I’ll pretty much have to get a second job just to be able to afford the commute to my first and best job.  And again, I AM NOT KIDDING.

But I want to dwell on Ms. Manning’s almost complete lack of confidence in her brother and sister African-Americans.

She’s just, you know, completely wrong.

It makes me wonder if the NAACP, like many other “legacy” organizations, has any relevance to anyone younger than, oh say, 45 years old.

I just watched one of my recorded stash of HGTV’s  Design Star show, in which they’ve winnowed the field to the final 4.  Two of the finalists are African-Americans (OK, somebody could be from Canada, because those Canadians are always sneaking in across the HGTV border) and another I think is at least part African-American.

Based on the coming attractions, next week will be spent in part as a feature on some TV show which is hosted by an African-American woman.  (Not Oprah, I don’t know who she is, and hey, she could be another of those stealth Candians, but you get my point.)

I don’t know if these contestants have savings accounts or have their acts totally together.  Of course, they struggle in the contest.  The last white man standing might win (sorry, Stanley, but I doubt it).

But, they sure as heck can find their way to work.  They strive mightily to succeed.  They are ambitious, determined,  creative and (dreaded word!) entrepreneurial.

I certainly hope every single one of them hears Ms. Manning’s low opinion of them and votes for Mitt Romney out of spite, at the very least.

What exactly is this woman saying?  She’s like a stereotyped race-card playing professional victim as featured in The Onion in a front page story written by Rush Limbaugh.

Does President Obama think her assessment of Black Americans is correct?

Oh right, don’t ask him, he wasn’t even there.

Don’t ever do this – Please!

When I saw a post today describing how the Obama campaign would like to be part of your wedding, etc. registry  I really did not believe it was real.

So sure was I that this was a fake story, I actually went to the Obama for America site, because I had to see this one with my own eyes.

{SIGH} It’s all too real.  Including the fake cheerful and youthful, yet mangled (gravy BOWL?) syntax.  Including the comments which range from loyally supportive to understandably snarky to downright mean as Mrs. Obama might say.

But what, exactly, are they saying here?  The first thought that comes to mind is “boy, these people are really desperate for money”, something with which even I can sympathize.  The second thought is that Obama and Co. seek to interject themselves into the most private, joyful moments of their supporters’ lives, with their hands out for money.

Like an insidious begger importuning a couple on a date, they accost you and request a share of something they should never even think they had a claim on.

Very, extremely creepy.  And rude.

Many on the Left probably wouldn’t believe this, but there is a debate taking place on the Right these days and I’ll sum it up this way: should we get down in the gutter with them, or do we continue to try and be better?

John Boehner’s recent advice to his house colleauges not to “spike the football” if Obama care is struck down by the SCOTUS is a pretty good example of the “be better” school.

Andrew Breitbart’s  entire life was a shining example of the “get down in the gutter” mode.

And, like with the Death Penalty, I usually sit on the fence over this.  My kid tells me “it’s important that we’re better, that’s a big part of why we’re right and they’re wrong” and I think she’s correct.  I’d like to think I’d cut my throat with a rusty razor blade before I’d say things about Mrs. Obama or the Obama daughters or pretty much anybody else like the things that those on the Left have said about Sarah Palin, her daughters and so many others.

But, the IRISH part of me always wants to jump in the gutter and start swinging.  In fact, I’m happy if you give me an excuse!

So, I’m torn.  But not today, today I am all on the “be better” side.

Please, please Mitt Romney, Republicans, Libertarians, Conservatives, Moderates, PLEASE DON’T EVER DO THIS!!!!!

One thing I don’t get about Obama’s immigration proposal

OK, I want to get this out there.

I can understand Obama instructing DHS not to pursue illegals in the narrow category of those brought here as minors, who are law abiding, etc.  That clearly falls under a discretionary standard and my guess is those people have been pretty much free from undue scrutiny for a long time now.  Making it official just makes it official, and provides a handy political boost to the Pres.

But I do not see how Obama, or DHS, or anybody else has the authority to instruct that these persons are now eligible to apply for legal work permits.

My understanding of Senator Rubio’s mini-DREAM act is that he would permit these same (or similar) situated persons to apply for student visas.

I could be wrong about some of this, and I’m not going to take the time to check it out, but there is a world of difference between student visas and work permits.

We do need “comprehensive” immigration reform and maybe we’ll be able to get it if Republicans are returned to one-party power in DC.  It needs to include many things the left won’t like.  In fact, it should consist pretty much of ONLY things the Left won’t like with 2 exceptions: 1. no mass deportations of law-abiding illegals already in the country and 2. a path to legalization for that same group.  Pretty much they should hate everything else in it, or it won’t be satisfactory to the rest of us.

These are the things, off the top of my head, that I would include:

=A solid closed border, including Mexico, including the airports, including visa departure verification

=To make visa departure verification easier I’d implement requirements that a return trip must be booked before entry is permitted, I’d shorten general travel visa times, which I think are now generally 6 months, to 2 months (with some exceptions)

=No bi-lingual education in any public school

=Required civics lessons (“what it means to be an American”) in every public school

=No more Spanish language assistance from the Federal Government.  I grew up in NYC and am fine with Public Health notices being published in as many foreign languages as necessary, but I find it very offensive that the IRS offers every form in Spanish and English.

=Alternative proposal, make English the official language of the USA

=END THE IMMIGRATION LOTTERY, arguably the worst concept for immigration every imagined, not to say implemented.  Does ANY other country take their future residents based on luck?

=End chain migration.  We should only admit spouses, minor children, and elderly parents with no options for care in the home country and who would remain ineligible for any “aid”

=Absolutely no welfare for non-citizen immigrants, legal or illegal, including food stamps, home heating aid, medicaid and any other “soft” welfare that is on offer

=No citizenship, EVER, for any person who has entered this country illegally – we’ll find a way to regularize you and your US born children can even grow up to be President, but you will not be able to vote for them

And, finally, increased penalties for crime committed by illegal aliens.  Of course this last one would have to happen on the state level and I don’t know why it hasn’t been already proposed.  Basically we’ve been giving illegals a “commit crimes for free” card and that needs to change.  I would say tack an extra 5-10 years on any criminal sentence if you committed a crime while in this country illegally.

None of this will work, or should even be considered, until we really have control of our borders.  For at least 5 years, that in conjunction with the poor economy ought to stanch the flow enough for other reforms to be put in place.

 

Thank you, Wisconsin voters!

Mere words cannot express the debt (or perhaps, way out of debt!) that all Americans now owe to the people of the great state of Wisconsin.

So here is their wonderful fight song, for your sing-a-long pleasure.

Elizabeth Warren, Big Chief Bullshit Artist

So, I’m breaking a personal rule here and just using the word bullshit in all its vulgar stridency.

Because it’s important, it’s for the children, it’s truth to power.

Nah, that’s all bullshit too.  It’s because Elizabeth Warren is gosh darn annoying.

Ms. Warren has been revealed to have, in a squirmy, wriggling sort of way self-identified as a Native American in the past.  It is presumed by many that she did this in order to advance her career (and the facts revealed in the Washington Secrets column regarding her credentials vs. those of her peers is certainly intriguing if not dispositive) and stopped doing it when no further boosting was necessary.  What nobody, and I mean nobody, believes is that she did it to “meet friends” or  find those “who are like” she is.  Unless, of course, she was looking for late feminist bullshit artists who want to become one of the 1% without losing touch with their Inner Other.

That is the purest bullshit.

I remember years ago hearing that college degrees are more properly understood as BS (bullshit) MS (more shit) PhD (piled higher and deeper).  I suppose Esquire Warren has a JD so I guess that stands for jumbo dung heap.

I do believe that she was told by her family that she had Native American ancestry.  But that’s the thing about bullshit, as this book  indicates, it doesn’t have to be a lie.  In fact, most bullshit isn’t a lie, it’s some truth used in the furtherance of a short cut, a get around, a get over.

And that was how Warren used her ancestry, just as she has tried to name herself the originator of the occupy movement, and just as she is now furiously spinning to get out of the web she wove.  And get this, in searching for that link, I see Ms. Warren was a registered Republican into her 40s!  Did Harvard know about that?

People like this are tiresome.  They don’t really want to do the hard work.  They just want to get over, get some for themselves, keep as much of it as they can, and tell you that you are not doing enough for others.  By which they mean you are not giving THEM enough money to do what they think best with.

They think the public are fools, and if they are members of the Democratic party they are pretty sure they can get away with their bullshit.

John Derbyshire, Trayvon Martin and the Hard Truth

I’ve read Mr. Derbyshire’s article and I too have found it rather disturbing.  Yet I  can’t dispute the core of what he says.

But I think he’s said things very badly, needlessly offensively and that on the whole it is unhelpful.

And since this is clearly in response to the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman incident I will write about that too.

The plain fact of the matter is this: since the let-it-all-hang-out 1960s black people have largely been granted a license to commit crime.  Not by the criminal justice system and  not by white people in general.  By white elites, most certainly.  By black people, in general or the elites, I don’t know.  There seems to be a code of Omerta in many communities and a lack of leadership, but in this case I will just admit, I’m not black so I don’t know.

Black on white crime is almost never,  ever described or prosecuted as hate crime.  And it is likely that most of black on white crime isn’t borne out of race hatred it is just general crime of covetousness.  But there are many crimes for which, if the races were reversed, the hatred motive would never be doubted.  In fact we’d do nothing but hear about it, see about it, think about and “search our souls” about it for days, weeks, months on end.

Here is just one link to a senseless, lurid, black on white crime that if the races were reversed would be as famous as the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping.

Black on black crime is completely ignored.  OK, not completely, it gets reported in the local media, maybe there is a case or two that breaks through to large coverage, but to be honest and without searching I can’t think of one.  Yet day after day, in city after city, innocent black people are brutalized, raped and killed by other black people.  Sometimes these are little children who are merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, or elderly citizens who have made the same error.

The black crime rate is out of control and the overwhelming amount of the victims are black.  In fact, despite the babies and the grannies most of the vics are Trayvon Martin aged youth.

But Jesse Jackson will never have a march about that.  Al Sharpton will never fulminate about that.  President Obama will never be asked about that.  And John Derbyshire is not concerned about that.

John Derbyshire is concerned about his children being caught up in some crime, personal or random, in which blacks are the perpetrators.

And you really can’t blame him for that concern.

And you really can’t blame all of society for being fearful of black young men.  They are the primary malefactors in society.  One would have to be abysmally stupid not to be wary of strange black men.

Add to this well known fact the bias of the MSM in reporting crime.  Crimes with black perps and white victims are treated as though race is never a motive factor.  As I say, often it may not be, but you will not hear about it even if it is.

Yet crimes where the perp is white and the vic is black get national coverage

Even when there really hasn’t been a crime committed at all.  (See Lacrosse, Duke University, railroad job.)

So, this is what white Americans are up against:

The media, staffed almost entirely by white people, who don’t care about white people, who seek to damn white people (or “white-hispanic” people) even when the facts aren’t on their side.  Who will falsely report stories, ignore or willfully distort evidence (as George Zimmerman’s 911 call was distorted), and evade correcting their “errors” if they can only make “white” people look bad.

Black people who are criminals and who, for the most part don’t prey upon white people, but who basically get a free pass from the MSM when and if they do.

Rabble rousers, like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who strive for media attention and get it most easily with the man-bites-dog stories of white on black crime.

And this is what black Americans are up against:

The media, staffed almost entirely by white people, who don’t care about black people,  who couldn’t care less when the victim isn’t white, unless the alleged perp is.

Black people who are criminals and who, for the most part don’t prey upon white people, but upon black people.

“Leaders” like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

It is one thing for a white parent to tell their child to avoid black people, what advice, exactly, is a black person supposed to give their child?

Because avoiding John Derbyshire,  George Zimmerman and even the Police just isn’t going to improve their odds by all that much.

‪Dancing With Myself – Billy Idol (1981) -‬‏ – YouTube

I’ve saved the draft of this post for a while.  Maybe it makes a good bridge from the last post to something more light-hearted. Perhaps some will think otherwise.  But this song very much expresses how I feel at my best, so I love it.

The Brave Jumpers of Sept. 11

 

I feel the need to write something about those persons who leapt from the WTC towers during the attack of 9/11/01.

To me, and I guess to pretty much everybody, these were the most frightening and horrific deaths of all the deaths that occurred that day.

When I think about 9/11 it is this that disturbs me, and it has been ungentle on my mind as this anniversary has approached.

There is a lot of talk about how these images have been “censored”, and maybe that is so.  One thing about images, they stay with you.  That is why one picture is, truly, worth a thousand words.  Anyone who has seen any one of the photos of any of the tragic people falling to their death will NEVER forget it. I don’t think this aspect of the attacks will really go down the “memory hole”, but it will be minimized, because truly it is almost too much to bear.

Nothing I have read really explicates why these images are are so frightening, how they touch on the universal fear of death.

The universal conceit as someone once said is: all shall die, but I shall live.  And, admit it, we all do share this conceit, even though we know it is  erroneous.

There is also the concept of “when your number’s up, your number’s up”.  And that is also true.  And this is where it all breaks down and makes the reality of the WTC jumper so disturbing.

The jumpers had to choose.  They had to choose to die, they had to throw themselves headlong into death, because they had no choice.  They had to choose because all their choices were taken away.  They had been thrown into a situation where “logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead” and they had NO CHOICE but to follow in kind.

No wonder this is so frightening.

It forces one to contemplate: what if I had to jump from the WTC?  From the 90th floor?  The 100th floor?

If you read this article, which is very, extremely, good (I may have to re-think my whole view of Esquire) you will see that there is a great aversion to thinking that it is your family member leaping.

We cannot think of these people as committing suicide.  They were doomed, truly doomed to death and they knew it.  For all we throw these phrases around, I’m doomed, doomed to death, there’s no way out, no one here gets out alive…..well for them all those metaphorical expressions became unutterably true, in the space of a very short time, on one of the the most beautiful mornings any of them had ever seen.

I think those who leapt from the WTC were very brave, incomprehensibly brave.  I doubt I would have been so brave.  I only hope I never need to find out.

RIP Falling Men and Falling Women  I know the Angels caught your Souls.

American Attacked – Original 9/11 Memorial Video by Steve Anonymous

America Attacked 9 1 1.

This link leads to the original, insofar as I know, post 9/11 memorial video.  The only creator’s credit I can find is steve@powforum.org, which appears to be defunct.

This video was EVERYWHERE after 9/11, for some time now I have only been able to find it on one particular website, they are truly great archivists for preserving it, and I thank them very much.

It appeared within a very short time after 9/11, maybe a week later.  This man was the first to use the great Enya tune.  If you check out youtube (as I did looking for this) you’ll see that, as happens to all great artists, everybody stole from Steve.

This video will bring back the emotions of that time as it was filled up with those emotions at the very moments they were being experienced by millions of people.

I very much wanted to post this video, truly it says everything there is to say about that horrible day whose 10th anniversary we mark tomorrow.

May all who were killed rest in eternal peace and may God Bless America.