Thursday, May 30, 2013

Sasquatch Isreal! Jim Crow Is Not

Not quite sure how I got on this mailing list, but I've just received an urgent communique on behalf of Memphis talk radio host James Edwards and his new book...
Are you sick and tired of being called a racist for simply opposing Obama's policies?
Well you should be, because it completely ignores your achievements in other vital areas of racism, such as minority voter suppression and Jewish graveyard defacement.
Discover why every conservative in America must read the explosive book, Racism Schmacism: How Liberals Use the "R" Word to Push the Obama Agenda, by veteran talk radio host James Edwards.
You've heard of explosive diarrhea?  As powerful as that is, it's nowhere near as explosive as this book (although the pages may be used as makeshift toilet tissue once you've finished reading them.  Or before; the effect is pretty much the same).
May 2, 2013 (MMD Newswire) - - If you're like James Edwards
Then you have our condolences.
you've had it up to here watching the conservative movement spin its wheels, making lots of noise but never going anywhere. 
On the contrary, I'm barely halfway through my first bag of Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Farmhouse Cheddar.
You're fed up with attending Tea Parties
To be honest, that happened about halfway through First Grade, when I finally got tired of sipping air out of Chrissie Cochran's pink plastic china set and started hanging out with Laurie Stewart, mostly because we both wore Toughskins and wanted to build a fort out of appliance boxes, an inflatable pool with a ripped bottom, and a half-finished dog house her dad stopped building after her cockapoo got hit by the ice cream truck and went to live on a farm.
...and other protest rallies, hoping to make a powerful statement about big government, only to spend most of your time listening to a bunch of wimps insisting they aren't racists.
Well, that's usually just the warm-up act ("I'm not a racist, but..." is the new "You might be a redneck if...").
You see, it's no accident--it's happening in city after city, all over America, for one simple reason--because liberals and race hustlers know that tossing out the "R word" is all they have to do to shut down conservative dissent. In fact, it's the whole point of all this "racism" business.To keep us so busy trying to prove we're not racists that we don't get a chance to make our point.
"Our point being that the Mud People are too damn touchy!"
It works every time because conservatives just don't get it. We haven't grasped what's really behind all these constant charges of racism that the media, liberals and race hustlers are constantly hurling at us.
Yes, that does sound exasperating.  On the other hand, if you're going to complain about being called a racist while using the expression "race hustlers" in two straight paragraphs, you ought not to be surprised that it doesn't take Alan Turing to decipher your code words.
 If we really "got it," we wouldn't spend another precious minute of our time worrying about being called "racists," let alone bothering to respond to it. We could get on with addressing the real issues that are vital to the future of our country. 
Miscegenation?
But not 1 in 100 conservatives have figured out what's going on.
Well, no one's ever accused them of being top-heavy with brains.
You see, James Edwards gets it.
They don't explain what "it" is, but I assume from the context it's syphilis.
 In his powerful book, he lays the truth right out there because he caught on a long time ago to the game the radical leftists are playing with the R word. Liberals know that the average, decent American believes the word "racist" means someone who hates people of another race, and wants to harm them.
When in reality, Webster's Dictionary defines it simply as "a NASCAR aficionado."
So, naturally, when the media and liberals call conservative activists "racists," they're horrified, and will do anything to try to prove they're not racists.
Like voting for Herman Caine in a straw poll.  Take that, Black Panthers!
Which is exactly why leftists toss the word around like confetti.They know it's a surefire way of stopping conservatives in their tracks.
It sure worked like a charm for Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman.
But here's a dirty little secret that James exposes in Racism, Schmacism. When liberals and race hustlers use the word "racist," it doesn't have the meaning it used to have--someone filled with hate and animosity for other races.
Now it means someone filled with a rich creamy nougat who just happens to firebomb Black churches.
 No, when the race hustlers and leftists use the word "racist," they simply mean "conservative white person." Period. Until you get this, you will never understand politics in modern day America.
Ah, that explains the "D" I got in Civics.  But in defense of my fellow race hustlers and leftists, I would point out that "racist" is just quicker and easier to say than "conservative white person."  Maybe we can abbreviate the latter term to make it punchier and more efficient, prune it down to its essential syllables.  How about "conwipes"?
In this brilliant (and often hilarious) new book, James Edwards proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that in today's politically correct climate..."racism" is simply anything a white person does that minorities and leftists don't approve of.
I'd like to make some snarky remark here, but have to confess that Mr. Edwards makes a valid point, since to me "racism" has always meant "televised golf" and Night Ranger's Man in Motion album.
Once you've finished it you'll never look at politics the same way again and you'll certainly never be a sucker for underhanded liberal smear tactics!
You'll be cured completely!  (Side effects may include dry mouth, night terrors, oily discharge, susceptibility to book blurbs, water retention, and loss of appetite, libido, sense of smell, and $12.37.)
James Edwards is available for interviews.
But don't pull any of that cute bait 'n' switch crap like when Playboy sent Alex Haley to interview George Lincoln Rockwell without first disclosing that the former was a ni--(CLANG!)

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Post-Friday Beast Blogging: The "Cat Memes By The Old Masters" Editions

Réfléchi fille avec un cul de chat orange
c. 1657; Oil on canvas, 87.6 x 76.5 cm; Los Angeles County Museum of Cat Ass
(click to embiggen)

UPDATE:  Our friend KWillow, a lady of fine family, good breeding, and one to whom the Muses call, hath given Riley and Moondoggie the gift of a good and thorough Rembrandting:
Study in Orange and Purple
(click to embiggen, I beg you)

Monday, May 20, 2013

Flowers in the Attic, Bats in the Belfry

By Bill S.

Last week, in celebration of Mother's Day, I offered up my annual list of Bad Movie Moms. There are some movie depictions of bad motherhood that need more than just a paragraph or two, but require a column all to themselves. In compiling my list this year, I came across two such films, Flowers In the Attic (1987) and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! (1992). After careful consideration, I determined that if I were to sit through the latter a second time, I'd probably want to shoot myself (I might -- repeat, might -- consider it next year), so I opted for the former. I have to confess I hadn't watched it in over 20 years, but I recalled it featuring not one, but two awful moms, and that I gave it a one-star rating after viewing it. (I should explain: back in the '80's when our family had HBO, I used to watch as many movies as I could, then keep track of them in a notebook, assigning star ratings to them. I'm aware of how geeky that is, which is why I no longer do it.)

So I viewed it again, and it all came back to me, much like a bad lunch coming back up. This picture's not so much creepy as it is "cringy." It's based on a book, the first in a series following the same characters, by V.C. Andrews. I've never read it, or any of her work. Perhaps someone who has can tell me how best to rate the quality of her writing: A-Passable, B-Mediocre, C-Terrible or D-"Sweet Lordy Gordy, How Did the Editors Refrain From Gouging Out Their Eyes After the First Three Pages?" Ms. Andrews passed away before the movie was released into theaters, but was on the set during production, and even makes a cameo appearance as a servant washing an upstairs window. She was reportedly pleased with the script and the casting of Kristy Swanson* in the lead role, both of which makes me think whatever illness she succumbed to impaired her mental judgement.
This is the story of the Dollangangers, a family so blindingly blonde and Aryan they make the Von Trapps seem like Sly & the Family Stone. The mother, Corinne (Victoria Tenant), teens Cathy (Swanson), Christopher** (Jeb Stuart), and five-year-old twins Carrie and Cory, all lead a happy, idyllic life, while the dad, Christopher, Sr.(Marshall Colt) goes to work. Each time the father comes home, the kids greet him by hiding behind the couch, jumping up and yelling, "Surprise!"

Cathy is especially close to her father, who considers her his favorite, and, away from the other kids, gives her a Very Special Gift, a ceramic ballerina. We in the audience begin taking bets as to who's going to the smash the thing. Since we see Corinne peering in with envy, she's our first candidate.

On the dad's 36th birthday, the kids ready themselves, arguing about how many candles to put on the cake, when they hear a car outside and assume position behind the couch. But instead, two policemen greet Corinne, and inform her and the kids that the father's been killed in an auto accident. This really ruins the birthday party, and that's the least of their trouble, because they eventually begin running out of money and have to sell off their possessions, eventually losing their house. At no time does Corinne try to look for a job. Perhaps she's not qualified to do anything useful, which gives her a lot in common with the actress playing her.

The family packs up and hops on a bus. Corinne informs them they're going to her parents' home, a stately mansion known as Foxworth Hall. We learn that she comes from a wealthy family, but is estranged from her parents, because, she explains, many years ago, she did something that displeased her father, and was disinherited. But on the bright side, he's now so old and decrepit, he's likely to kick the bucket, and her plan is to win back his love and put her back in the will before he croaks. I can see no flaw in this plan. No, none at all.

Cathy is a bit more skeptical. She also feels her mother should have prepared the kids better for death. "She never allowed us to have a dog, or a kitten...if we had a pet and it died, we would have learned something about that." Yes, good parenting is giving your child a pet in the hopes it will die eventually. Hey, if she was really looking out for those kids, she'd have gotten them a cute, fluffy kitten, clubbed it over the head with a mallet in front of them, and explained, "Life is short. Get used to it." 

Finally, they all arrive at Foxworth Hall, a place so creepy and forboding, little Cory observes, "Witches in there, Mama. Witches and monsters." Maybe not, but the grounds do have a bunch of noisy hell hounds and a creepy butler named John. The children meet their grandmother, who's identified in the credits as "Grandmother", but I've learned is actually named Olivia, because V.C. Andrews ran out of "C" names, I guess. It may be said that Louise Fletcher***, who plays Olivia, displays the only thing approaching competence in this movie, though she's stuck playing a psycho biddy so cold and heartless she makes Nurse Ratched seem warm and cuddly. 

Olivia leads the children to an upstairs room, explaining that they're to stay there at all times. She also instructs them to never speak, or even whimper, without her permission, then exits, locking the children inside. There are bars on the windows. The next morning, she brings them breakfast, then asks if the children know why their mother left 17 years ago, and when they inform her they don't she explains: "Your mother's marriage was unholy! A sacrilege! An abomination in the eyes of the Lord! She did not fall from Grace. She leapt -- into the arms of a man whose veins pulsed with the same blood as hers! Not a stranger, but her own uncle! And you, the children, are the devil's spawn! Evil from the moment of conception!" I'm guessing at this moment, that "World's Best Grandma" mug they were planning on giving her, won't go over well. 
This shocking back story is a lot for the kids, and us, to absorb, and it's never addressed in any meaningful way in the movie. We can't imagine how or why it would happen, and the writers don't seem to give a shit about telling us anything. (I'm sure the book it's based on offers a perfectly ridiculous explanation.) Olivia concludes by telling them their grandfather must never know they exist.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Corinne takes her first step towards reconciliation with her father, a creepily ancient man (he looks like he could be her grandfather) with long fingernails, who lies in bed withering away, unable to rise. She stands before him and lowers her blouse. Her mother reaches for a whip. The camera, mercifully, cuts away to an exterior shot of the house and we hear the sound of a whip. 
(Did I happen to mention that this is movie got a PG-13 rating? I guess someone decided a depiction of incest and sadomasochism was perfectly acceptable fare for kids in middle school.)

The next day, Granny brings Mum up to see the kiddies, who greet her excitedly. Olivia admonishes them to stop screaming. Little Carrie marches up to her, looks up, and starts screaming (Yay!). Olivia picks the child up by her ears and starts shaking her (Boo!) Cory rushes over and bites Olivia's leg (Yay times double infinity!) Olivia kicks Cory across the room (Boo times triple infinity!) Then she instructs Corinne to remove her blouse, to show off her whip marks. "Seventeen lashes -- one for each year she lived in sin. So you understand me: I will give you food and shelter. But never kindness or love. For it is impossible to feel anything but disgust for what is unwholesome." Apparently, Olivia's definition of "wholesome" includes staging a mother-daughter S&M show for her husband's amusement. After she leaves, Christopher tends to Corinne's wounds, and she vows that the kids won't have to stay locked up for too much longer, and repeats her plan to win back her father's approval.

The next day, Olivia brings them breakfast, which this time includes a plate of suspiciously large sugar cookies. She also brings them a list of rules that must be really, really important, though not to the filmmakers, since we never find out exactly what those rules are. She also shows them a secret door leading to the attic, to give them more space and remind us what the title of this movie is. The kids grab some of the food (Cory takes all the cookies) and go upstairs to explore. They find a room strewn with thick layers of obviously fake cobwebs, and boxes of old clothes, books, and antique junk. It's a child's dream -- if they were trapped in a tiny room with absolutely nothing for a month. Christopher finds a dancer's barre for Cathy, and sets it up -- although it's not clear where she'd be able to get in any dance practice with all the crap cluttering up the place -- while Cory finds and domesticates a rat. But they soon make the attic a bit more homey, decorating it with paper flowers, because the title Rats in the Attic tested poorly with focus groups.
It takes a special kind of stage mother to see a casting notice in Variety that reads, "Wanted: 6-year old boy to wear Christopher Atkins wig and fondle rats" and immediately draw a big fat circle around it with her El Marko.

With Corinne's visits growing less and less frequent as the months go by, Christopher and Cathy assume the role of surrogate parents to the twins. Carrie misses being outside, where the grass is, and Cathy explains Dad took the grass up to Heaven (Huh?). Cory misses ice cream, and Christopher explains that the Bible says there's a time for everything, including a time for eating ice cream (Huh?) Later that evening, when the twins are sleeping, Christopher and Cathy express concern about where their mother might be -- what if she's been locked up, like they are? When they go back into the room, they find the twins sleeping in the same bed (earlier, Olivia instructed that the boys had to share one bed and the girls the other). Rather than wake Carrie, Cathy and Christopher sleep in the same bed. The next morning, Olivia enters, catching them, and smashes Cathy's ceramic ballerina. This, they decide, is the last straw, and Christopher and Cathy try to escape by sawing through a bar on one of the windows and climbing onto the roof. They attract the attention of the hell hounds, and nearly attract the attention of the groundskeeper, but manage to sneak back inside.

Corinne finally visits again, and scolds Cathy and Christopher for attempting to escape. She then gives them a choice: 'We can just pack up and leave, right now, or we can just wait, a little longer, until the will reading. That is, once your grandfather's dead." Cathy insists they forget about the money, but Christopher, stupidly, sides with Corinne, and pressures Cathy to agree.

Corinne continues to visit her creepy father, who seems to take a "special" interest in her (while Olivia looks on with envy). The movie stops short of showing exactly how much of her father's love Corinne is trying to win back, but I think the amount is, "Just enough to make the audience throw up."

Meanwhile, upstairs, the director takes advantage of the fact that he's got an 18-year-old playing a 14-year-old by lingering on Kristy Swanson's body while she takes a bubble bath.
Christopher walks in for one of their usual bathtub chats, and the two are interrupted by Olivia, who assumes more is going on than a PG-13 movie will show us. Christopher lays into her, telling her she's hoping to catch them doing something improper.  "Look at you in your black dress, your fancy jewels, your pinched face. We're not afraid of you! We laugh at you! Do you hear that? We laugh!"  (He might have added, "Be gone, before someone drops a house on you!")

There's a superfluous "false alarm" moment where Cory seems to have disappeared. Christopher, Cathy, and Carrie race through the attic, shouting "Cory" over and over (19 times. I counted.) Cory is just huddled in a corner of the attic, playing with his new pet rat, Fred.

Olivia returns, and strikes Cathy, crying, "You are a sinner!" She knocks Cathy to the ground, bolts the door to the room, leaving Christopher in the attic. As Christopher pounds on the door, Olivia reaches for a pair of scissors, approaching Cathy menacingly, and...cuts off her hair. The horror! Finally, she leaves and Christopher enters the room. He finds locks of hair strewn about the floor. Cathy is on the bed sobbing -- probably because for the rest of the movie, she'll have to wear the least convincing wig since Irene Dunn in the final 10 minutes of Cimarron. (No explanation is given for the absence of the twins during this entire episode. Maybe they were on the roof throwing cookies to the hell hounds.)

Olivia stops feeding the children for a couple weeks. They become pale and weak. Cory becomes sickly. Christopher cuts his arm to feed Cory his blood. I think at this point, I was tempted to take the DVD out and fling it across the room. 
 
Christopher removes the hinges from the door, and pushes it open, giving him and Cathy just enough room to squeeze out (Is this even possible? And how would they get back in?) They sneak downstairs and investigate the house like they're Mystery Incorporated (you'd think they'd look for food, but no), and discover their mother's room, which looks nauseatingly opulent. They then find their grandfather's room. They approach the bed, and lean in closer. The grandfather wakes, and grabs Cathy, saying "I always loved you the best, Corinne!" Needless to say, they're freaked out by this and race back upstairs, narrowly avoiding detection from the butler. They're also too freaked to to ponder the grandfather's words, which implied Corinne has siblings. (This is either a giant plot hole, or just crappy writing. Or both.)

The next morning, the breakfast tray is being prepared again, and before the plate of sugar cookies is added, we see someone sprinkling an extra ingredient on them. I bet that extra ingredient is Love. Corinne finally visits the kids again, bearing presents for each. She seems ecstatic, and cheerfully oblivious to how sickly they've become, praising Cathy's new haircut. She has great news -- her father loves her again and there's going to be a party re-introducing her to society.  (You'd think finding just the right card to announce the coming out of a 40-year old incestuous debutante would be tough, but Hallmark comes through for them.)

Sadly, Cathy insists on harshing her mother's buzz: "Look at us, Mother! Do we look like you with your rosy cheeks and bright eyes? Do you know or even care that grandmother stopped feeding us for a week?"

Corinne is outraged that Cathy would have the nerve to complain about being locked in a room for months and being starved. "You are heartless. When you're ready to treat me with love, I'll be back." Then she storms out.

Cathy and Christopher decide to sneak out to watch the party. They see their mother dancing in a strapless evening gown, which seems a bold fashion choice given all those -- wait, where did those whip marks go? They seem to have healed completely. 

The gentleman she's dancing with is the family lawyer, Bart Winslow, a name that seems to have come from a Soap Opera character generator. 

Cory falls deathly ill. Cathy demands her mother take him to a doctor. After much hesitation, and a slap fight between the two of them, Corinne finally summons the Butler to take him downstairs. She assures them he'll be back, and then the camera cuts to a shot in the woods to show the groundskeeper digging a grave. As Corinne delivers the sad news about Cory, we see that there are three other graves being dug. While this is a moment for our tears, we can take solace in knowing Cory's in a better place --namely, far away from the set of this movie.

A few days later, Carrie makes an unfortunate discovery about Cory's pet rat, Fred. "He won't wake up!" Christopher finds a cookie in Fred's cage, like the ones Cory was eating, and realizes he must have been poisoned. After researching one of the medical books that happened to be in the attic, he deduces it was arsenic. ****

They make plans to escape. 
Step 1 of their plan involves Cathy disguising herself as Daun, the Forgotten Cassidy Brother.

Christopher decides to sneak downstairs to find money, and overhears his mother and Bart discussing their wedding, which is to be held the next day. He returns upstairs. We see another tray of food being prepared, and this time the camera pulls back to reveal that the person sprinkling arsenic on the cookies is Corinne. But why are their four cookies? What a scatterbrain. We'll chalk that up to wedding day jitters.

Olivia goes upstairs to the children's room, which appears to be empty. They charge out of a closet and Christopher knocks her out with a chunk of the bed post (Yay times quadruple infinity!) They head downstairs to find their grandfather to tell him what's happened, on the assumption, I guess, that an elderly, horny, bedridden man with dementia will be able to help them. Instead, they find the room empty, and his bed dismantled. He's already dead, and they discover a copy of his will, dated two months ago. The will states that if Corinne had any children in her previous marriage, she'll be disinherited. After a year of being locked in an upstairs room wherein they were starved and poisoned, it finally dawns on them that their mother never intended for them to leave the room at all -- at least not upright. 

They decide to slip out of the house, steal one of the cars belonging to a wedding guest, drive to the police station and report the abuse and murder of the brother, handing in the evidence of the poisoned cookie. OH, WAIT, no, they don't do the most sensible thing possible. What I meant to say is, they decide to crash the wedding and make a scene. Corinne pretends she doesn't even recognize them, which leads to...the best part of this entire movie, and it's only 48 seconds long.
Aaaaaand with that, the kids just walk out of the house, arm in arm, to parts unknown, while the Grandmother watches them from an upstairs window. In a voiceover narration, Cathy reveals that she became a dancer, Christopher became a doctor, and Carrie grew up "but was never completely healthy", which is the strangest way to say "scarred for life" ever. She then adds, "I sometimes wonder if Grandmother is alive, still presiding over Foxworth Hall, waiting for my return." Um, why the hell would she be wondering about that? Wasn't there an entire roomful of people who witnessed a freak accident and a claim that a five year old boy was murdered? Did the director totally forget that? Actually, I'm not sure he was paying attention to anything, except Kristy Swanson's legs. (He certainly wasn't paying attention to her line readings).

There was to be a sequel to this -- Louise Fletcher and Kristy Swanson received copies of the script. According Swanson, it was a "sexfest" that even included Cathy and Christopher hooking up. I can't imagine why the studio passed on that.

*Kristy Swanson makes Kristen Stewart seem like Julie Christie. Yet somehow this mopey drip won a "Young Artist Award" for this role. If I'm not mistaken, that's the same accolade given to Kirk Cameron for Like Father, Like Son. She won in the category "Best Actress In a Horror or Mystery Motion Picture", and her competition included Jennifer Banks in Friday the 13th, Part VII, Paula Irvine for Phantasm II, Marie Leeds for Near Dark, Ebonie Smith for Lethal Weapon, Shawnee Smith (no relation to Ebonie) for The Blob and Brooke Theiss for Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.

** Or, as Kristy pronounces it, "CHRIS-tuh-ffferr!"

***Still, I was hoping Olivia would be played by Inga Swenson, and that she'd greet her daughter by saying, "Corinne, Corinne, Corinne!" in a Swedish accent. Lord knows I was doing it every time I saw Corinne.

****Yes, Cory's death was caused by "a cookiefull of arsenic," and I tried, I really, really tried, to find a clever way to work in a reference to The Sweet Smell of Success. But I couldn't. I apologize for this failing.

--Bill S.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Sundays With S.Z. - Love, Conservative Style!

Originally published October 14, 2003 by s.z.


Undercover Conservative Pt 2: Dating With the Enemy

As I stated yesterday, in an effort to expand my horizons, I began clicking on the links on the Usual Suspects' sites. It has turned out to be enlightening, in a horrifying kind of way. Here's my report on dating-related advertising Links from RushLimbaugh.com, Lucianne.com, BillO'Reilly.com, and Townhall.

First, RushLimbaugh.com. Which, btw, now features this new inducement to join Rush's "24/7"club:
"Reach Out to Rush"
Send Rush Your Support!
E-mail Rush via the super-secret Rush 24/7 member e-mail...private e-mail
While I would be happy to reach out to Rush, I'm not paying to do it. And personally, I'm waiting until they add the super-secret decoder ring, so Rush can send me private messages during his program (D-R-I-N-K-M-O-R-E-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E), to the package before I join 24/7. But of course, all that is on hold for another 29 days, 10 hours (they have a clock counting down the time until Rush gets out of rehab, which I thought wasn't exactly the right message to be sending about rehab, or to be sending to the Rush addicts who are counting down the minutes).

Anyway, the link that appealed to me (but which doesn't seem to be there today) was for Elephant Dates. I guess the link was removed because the outfit isn't in business yet, but here's the message you get when you go to their site:
Elephant Dates™ will be a site for all Flag Waving Conservative Singles, looking for like minded conservative guys and gals to spend quality time with. Our hope is that conservative love and marriage will abound! 
Please tell us what conservative love qualities you are looking for in a man or woman to help us build our data base.
Hmm, what conservative love qualities am I looking for in a man? Well, I guess the traditional ones: selfishness, intolerance, hardheartedness, and the subsidization of big business.

But since they don't actually have any eligible conservatives on tap, there's little hope for conservative love and marriage abounding as yet. So, they just link back to Rush to give you hope that someday your lonely conservative nights won't be so empty. Specifically, they refer you to an archived account of how "Dee" called Rush's show and complained about how she couldn't meet any red-blooded conservative men, and so had to date "liberal lemons." She wanted to know where in the country she should move in order to meet conservative cauliflowers.

Rush told her:
Dee, despite the liberal lads you've been dating, there is hope out there. Many of the guys writing empathized with her feelings, seeing as they too, had issues with dating liberal ladies. We even had one guy tell her to come on down to Virginia where it's basically raining conservative men. Hallelujah Dee!  
Be careful you don't go out in THAT shower without an umbrella.

So, while Elephant Dates sounds great (what a nice story to tell your children: you met their mother at Elephant Dates!), I wanted a Conservative Dating service that was already in business.

Lucianne.com is pushing two dating services, Eharmony and Matchmaker.com -- I guess she figures her readers are SERIOUSLY in need of dating help. But neither of these businesses seem to cater exclusively to conservatives (although I did notice that Eharmony was also being pitched by Bill O'Reilly's site, and wondered if there was some hidden conservative bent to it -- and when I read that its founder has appeared on "Focus on the Family," I realized that there probably was.) Anyway, a quick look at Matchmaker.Com found just 3 men in my age range and geographic area: one heavily into "alternate sexuality," one who whose favorite movie is Demolition Man, and one who describes his intellect as "smart" and indicates under reading habits, "I might read a book while on an airplane." So, I passed on Matchmaker.com, despite the fact that two of these guys described themselves as staunch conservatives (yes, the smart one and the alternatively sexual one).

Eharmony's claim to fame is that you answer a zillion questions, and THEY find the perfect match for you. So, it's computer dating right out of the 1960s! It's expensive ($40 a month) and apparently doesn't find many perfect matches for most people, but they do promise to provide you with a free personality analysis if you fill out their questionnaire. I decided to try it, since I find my personality quite intriguing, and thought they might enjoy it too. But after about 10 screens of questions (with 20 or so questions per screen), we were only 20% done with the survey, and I was getting tired of their interrogation. So, when I got the question: "How often do you think they're all out to get you?", I quit. I was never going to find my conservative match this way!

So, I turned to Town Hall, and was delighted to see that they were recommending "Conservative Singles: A place for conservative singles to meet. Liberals need not apply where single conservatives go online: Conservative Matchmaker.com "

So, I had to go undercover again, in search of the story of what happens when single conservatives go online.

Their home page seems innocuous enough:
Welcome to Conservative Matchmaker Website! This site an exciting place for single members of the conservative line of thought! It is designed to be used by politically conservative singles wanting to be introduced to other politically conservative singles in their own city or even across the country!
So, they aren't a matchmaker so much as a traditional online dating service. Or so it would seem!
I clicked on the "Learn More" button:
Want some more information about us? This site is *only* for people of the Conservative mindset - from all over the United States of America! . . .We will have to ask for your patience with this site - we'll always have some growing pains - but we will work to keep these to a minimum. Please pray for us to perservere with this work!
Um, okay, I'll pray for you to perservere. Anyway, another click revealed they only have 147 active members, which kind of reduces the odds of finding true conservative love there, at least for now. But I was willing to do further exploration. But to get to the next step, seeing their questionnaire, you have to join up. So, I became Ayn Colter, a 40-something woman is search of true love with a manly man who would keep me barefoot and pregnant.

The first part of the questionnaire asks the basics, (age, location, what you're trying to hook up with), but after a couple of screens, we got to the heart of the program:
Where would you place your views? 
And while they say that "liberals need not apply," one of your choices from the pulldown menu is indeed "liberal." But maybe that choice is just there so will admit your socially unacceptable views, and so not be accepted. Or maybe you really can join, but nobody will date you. Or maybe, since they only have 147 members, they've relaxed their standards. Anyway, since "fascist" wasn't one of the choices, I picked "conservative" for Ayn.

On the next question, "Where within the spectrum of the previous choice would you place your views?" Once again my first choice ("lunatic fringe") wasn't listed, so I went with "far right."

Now on to "Party Affiliation." They had several to choose from, including many that I didn't know had parties, like Constitution, Reform, American Heritage, and Indifferent. (Now that I know it exists, I think I'll try running for President on the Indifferent Party ticket.)

I next was grilled on my political involvement, with the Matchmaker wanting to know:
How active are you in this party?
How active are you in furthering conservative causes?
How often do you vote?
Do you contribute financially to political causes?
I decided that Ayn is a member of the Republican Party (although her views are probably more aligned with the Rabid Party), and that she claims to be very active in it, and to further its causes. However, she rarely votes and never contributes financially to political causes. She's just that kind of girl.

And then Conservative Matchmaker asked for:
My Views on Abortion:
My Views on Capital Punishment:
My Views on Welfare:
My Views on Taxes:
My Views on Gun Control:
Ayn is against abortion, for Capital Punishment, and thinks we need less welfare, less taxes, and way less gun control. Any was then asked for her views on the current President. (Choices are limited to: He's horrible; He's okay; I like him; I love him! I assume that if you say he's just "okay," the Matchmaker washes her hands of you. If you merely "like" him, you get matched up with the guys whose favorite movie isTitanic. And if you think he's "horrible," you're reported to the Secret Service, and subsequently deported. Ayn 'loves!" him, of course.)
But does she listen to any of these talk shows?
Bill O'Reilly
Dr. James Dobson
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
G.Gordon Liddy
Laura Ingraham
Matt Drudge
Michael Savage
Rush Limbaugh
Sean Hannity and a bunch more I've never heard of
I decided that she probably listens to Matt Drudge, and maybe Dr. Laura -- but that's it, since she's a busy gal and doesn't have time to sit in front of the radio all day. She has countries to invade and leaders to kill! The type of relationship she's interested in is long-term (she's already had more one-night stands than Casey Kamem's Countdown has had one-hit wonders). Her height is 5'8" and her weight is 90 pounds. She is blonde. Her view on kids is that every fertilized egg is a baby, and once said babies are born they should be seen by somebody else, and not heard.

The "My view on alcohol" question made me stop and think, since the only choices are:

I never drink
I drink a couple of times a year
I drink on special occasions
I drink alcohol with meals
I drink socially


Where is "I drink to stop the accusing voices of those I've wronged"? Or "I drink anti-socially"? But then I realized this is just asking for your VIEW on alcohol, and not your actual drinking practices, do I picked "I drink on special occasions." Nobody needs to know how many occasions end up being special in Ayn's life.

Then we covered views on smoking ("I view it as a nature's way of decimating foreign countries"); money handling ("I practice the patrician value of extreme cheapness myself, but think men should buy me expensive gifts if they expect any action"); How were you raised by your parents? ("Not very well, evidently"); and How will you raise your kids? ("In a well-run state institution')

I answered a question about makeup (which is there so guys can say they only like women who wear "natural" makeup, and so women can lie and say they don't wear any at all). I responded yes to a string of questions on Ayn's likes (I like movies! I like to read. I like to travel. I'm into making stuff (Crafts / Woodworking / false citations and the information in my book.) But when we got to "Are you ticklish?" I decided this was getting entirely too intrusive, even for a diva like Ayn, and quit.

Therefore, I'm sorry but I can't report on the profiles of the other members of Conservative Matchmaker.com. I will never know if I (or rather, Ayn) would have found true love there. I wasn't able to chat with the one active member of Conservative Matchmaker who was online. But I will, of course, continue to pray that they persevere.

And that's Love, Conservative Style!

Tomorrow I'll conclude my mission report with a recap of the National Review Online's plan for kids, and a look at the site with the best ads anywhere: Newsmax!

But for now, let me leave you with a couple of quotes from the Newsmax pundits.

First, here's Jim Quinn with Rush Limbaugh and the Grandmother Test
So, let me ask you a question: How do you think Rush's view of the importation, distribution and use of recreational drugs differs from the view held by your grandmother? You know, the one who broke her hip and got strung out on her pain meds. I'd dare say not very much. So, is your grandmother a hypocrite too? Well, is she?
And next, here's John LeBoutillier, recounting the inspirational message Rush Called to Higher Purpose (calm down, everyone--he's NOT DEAD):
Rush Limbaugh has been 'called' by God to serve a much higher purpose than educating the American public about the failures of Big Government Liberalism.  Now Rush's job will be to lead by example a new Campaign Against Prescription Drug Addiction. [snip] Instead of his listeners calling Rush each weekday, this time God has 'called' this radio genius to a higher cause. 
And while I am sincerely glad to hear that God has told Rush to shut up about Big Government Liberalism, and to instead lead by example a campaign against prescription drug addiction, I do have to say that "God called Rush to get addicted to pain killers" is a certainly a rationalization I never would have thought of.

And Jim, my grandmother is not a hypocrite. For even if she had gotten "strung-out on her pain meds" (which seems unlikely, since she didn't like taking drugs, even when dying of a painful infection), she was a very kind-hearted person who never said anything bad about anyone, and certainly never presumed to judge them. I hope this restores your faith in grandmothers.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Just Think of Your Starving Child As an Apprentice Supermodel

Wow, this place has really gone to hell.  Broken windows, moldy carpets, a dead roach floating in the toilet; mouse turds, cigarette butts, and used syringes scattered around the baseboards; and I see my keyboard is now slightly more dusty and cobwebbed than that haunted organ from The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.  If I didn't know better, I'd think someone had rented this place out to a William S. Burroughs Fantasy Camp.  But that's what I get for being an absentee landlord.

Anyway, many thanks to Bill S. for his annual column on Big, Bad Motion Picture Mamas -- it really brightened up the place -- and sincere apologies on my part for the mess and general air of Gothic decay I've allowed to overcome Stately Crap Manor.   I promise to do better.

I haven't been completely idle during my convalescence; I've been watching bad movies and working on the sequel to Better Living Through Bad Movies (because I can do that lying down), but I really do need to get back to WO'C's raison d'être --  covering the wingnut beat.  Unfortunately, wherever I clicked the past few days, all the right-bloggers were raving about Benghazi, which makes me think of Ben-Gay, which just reminds me that my back hurts.  Then I saw this piece by Dennis Prager...

In the comments to this post, L'il Innocent observed, "What gets me about Sheri's writing (and don't stop me if you've heard this before) is her incredibly consistent tone of gently bemused reasonableness."    And I agree, that tone is something I've always admired about s.z.'s work, and while I can only aspire to mimic it, I generally manage to avoid taking personal offense to whatever our subjects are blathering about.

But this National Review column by Dennis Prager about the moral imperative of weaning poor kids from food kind of pissed me off.  In fact, it made me so mad that I had to refer to World O' Crap's patented Ma Joad-O-Meter to measure just how mad it made me...
...and the answer is that I am currently at Ma Joad Threat Level Four: Ambulatory Mean-Mad.  But what the hell, Dennis founded his own online University, and though their football team is ranked relatively low this year, primarily because it consists of a Madden NFL '94 cartridge for the Sega Genesis someone found under the couch, I can't deny that his self-inflicted credentials are much more impressive than mine.
No More Free Breakfasts 
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced last week that it will discontinue the free-school-breakfast plan it initiated last year. 
Called “Food for Thought,” the plan provides school breakfasts to about 200,000 students.
It was funded by the LAUSD and the non-profit Los Angeles Fund for Public Education, whose goal is to raise the number of participants to about 450,000 students (out of a total of 645,000 in the entire district).
Mr. Prager (sorry, I guess that should be Chancellor Prager) doesn't provide a link or a source for this news; in fact, he doesn't provide any links at all in his piece, except in his author's bio at the end, which links to his latest book (marked down to $15.98 from $26.00 -- act now!) and Prager University (Go Fightin' Pharisees!) "a virtual university aimed at educating people through five-minute videos on conservative political and social views." The Political Science Department offers such courses as "Is The Right More Ideological Than the Left?" taught by visiting professor Jonah Goldberg:
"According to popular myth, if you hold conservative political views, you're a rigid ideologue, unwilling to compromise. But if you hold liberal political views, you're practical and open minded. Best selling author, Jonah Goldberg, explains how this myth got started and why it's wrong in this Prager University course."
...while students pursuing a degree in Life Studies are privileged to distance learn under celebrated academics such as "Comedian and podcaster extraordinaire, Adam Carolla," who holds the Distinguished Potty Chair in Senile Adolescence, and Dennis Prager, who brings his vast, real world experience as a twice-divorced, thrice-married man to courses such as "The Case for Marriage" and the completely not hilariously self-justifying "He Wants You":
Married or not married, men look at women. That's their nature. But is this fascination with the female body a threat to their spouse or the woman they are with? That's the question that best-selling author and nationally syndicated talk show host, Dennis Prager, deals with here. His answer will be a revelation to most women... and a relief to most men
And a windfall to divorce attorneys.

Students majoring in history may select from up to six separate courses (for a total of 30 full instructional minutes!), taught by scholars such as Amity Shlaes ("Why Calvin Coolidge Was Awesome and Could Totally Have Beaten Up FDR, Even If You Factor Out the Polio"), and H.W. Crocker, III, who presents "The Moral Case for the British Empire."  Mr. Crocker is a writer for the American Spectator (Hip, Hip, Hooray, It’s Rhodesia Independence Day!Robert E. Lee: Icon of the South — and American Hero and How Would Jefferson Davis Vote?) and the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War, which asks the burning question:
"What If the South Had Won?" Along the way, he reveals a huge number of little-known truths, including why Robert E. Lee had a higher regard for African Americans than Lincoln did; how, if there had been no Civil War, the South would have abolished slavery peaceably (as every other country in the Western Hemisphere did in the nineteenth century); and how the Confederate States of America might have helped the Allies win World War I sooner.
Ah...Paradise Lost.  Anyway, students interested in applying to Prager University should contact the Admissions Office.  Next Semesters at 2:45 and 3:30.

Dennis may not know how to cite his sources when writing an essay, and should maybe learn to more quickly recognize red flags during job interviews, such as when a prospective employee responds to the question "What would do you consider your greatest weakness?" by bashfully confessing "Well, sometimes I take on tasks personally that could easily be delegated to someone else, and I'm an apologist for Apartheid and a traitorous neo-Confederate" -- but he's clearly steeped in Academia and swollen with bona fides, so let's get to the meat of his argument -- which is that you can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat, and if we don't give you any meat to begin with, you can just shut up about the pudding.
If you go to the fund’s website, you are greeted with these messages: “Learn to dream” (in English and in Spanish) and “Imagine your life without limits.” These are essentially meaningless messages.
I guess to a Baby Boomer who grew up white and middle class, the idea of society putting any sort of limits on your life and ambitions would sound like gibberish, especially if you used Babelfish to translate it from English to Sociopath.

Now, I'm old -- not as old as Dennis, but old enough to remember when we admitted to having poor and working class people in this country, and not just moochers with microwaves and grocery store cell phones.  I also seem to remember that the consolation prize for growing up poor in America was the American Dream, and its inherent promise of social mobility, the idea that your kids would be better off than you were, and that any boy (it was always a boy) could grow up to be President.  Granted, we assumed that latter point was bullshit, even back then, but when it finally came true (mixed race child of a single mother is elected Leader of the Free World), people like Dennis instantly stopped telling us it was.
But, as we shall see, the Fund’s breakfast program is not only meaningless; it is quite destructive.
What does feeding a child destroy?  It destroys character.  Specifically, the character of Oliver Twist, because who'd give a crap about him if he were fat, greasy, and complacent.  Besides, why would any school need to, let alone want to, feed a child during the instructional day?  As leading institutions of higher learning such as Prager University have shown, most classes only last five minutes, and anybody can wait that long to grab a Snickers out of the freezer.
The reasons for the announced cancelation were that the program had drawn rodents and insects into classrooms and that classroom learning time was being wasted by students who were eating for long periods in class.
Ah, I see the problem.  Dennis is confusing the School Breakfast Program, which has been providing federally funded meal assistance to poor children since 1966, with LAUSD's "Breakfast in the Classroom," which allows students to eat after the first bell.
But the rodents, insects, and disruption of class learning time are nothing compared with the destructiveness of the free breakfast itself. 
First, the program was created to solve a problem that does not exist.
You know, even when Dr. Diane Medved let her Freudian slip slow and bitched that homeless people were spoiling her view of Waikiki Beach ("Leave it to the homeless to dampen my enthusiasm for paradise"), her complaint stipulated the existence of the poor.
It is inconceivable that there are five, let alone 200,000 or the projected 450,000, homes in Los Angeles that cannot afford breakfast for their child. 
I don't think that word means what you think it means, Dennis.  "In LAUSD, over 553,000 of our students qualify for a free/reduced price breakfast but only 29% of our total school population participates. This means that over 400,000 students may start their school days without breakfast, deprived of an important nutritious meal needed to succeed in class."

And Dennis, you can't conceive of there being five children in the the second largest public school district in the U.S. whose familes can't afford three meals a day?  Really?  When Mary taught at her previous inner city school (which had plenty of insects and rodents even without Breakfast in the Classroom), she had more than five hungry kids in her class alone.
A nutritious breakfast can be had for less than a dollar. For examples, go to the website “webMD” which lists five “Breakfast Ideas for a Buck.”
My mistake, Chancellor Prager did include a link.  Allow me to summarize these Ideas for the benefit of any poor people out there who haven't yet realized that they're extinct and no longer need nourishing but inexpensive meals:  Go to McDonalds (Ideas 1-2); go to Burger King (Ideas 3-4); go to Jack in the Box (Idea 5).
Second, it both enables and encourages irresponsible, uninterested, and incompetent parenting.
When what we, as a society, ought to be encouraging is irresponsible, uninterested, and incompetent teaching of online courses by lazy, unqualified hacks and febrile bigots.  It's like that old saying about "feed a cold, starve a fever" -- or is it the other way around?  Regardless, in the academic world, the best results and healthiest profit margins are obtained by observing that old saw, "feed a faculty and starve a student."
Given how inexpensive breakfast can be (not to mention the myriad public and private programs that provide food for poor households), any home that cannot provide its child with breakfast demands a visit from child protective services. Any parent who cannot give a child breakfast is not too poor; he or she is too incapable of being, or too irresponsible to be, a competent parent.
Because money just appears, doesn't it?  If you're down to your last $1.50, and you've got to make a choice between buying your child a French Toast Stick at Burger King (as recommended by WebMD) or sending her to school hungry so you've got bus fare to reach the minimum wage job that's the only thing between your family and homelessness, well -- you've obviously going about this living-in-America thing all wrong, because all you need to do is whine about high marginal tax rates on your radio show and some billionaire will cut you a check.  It never fails.
Third, even where decent parents are involved, free breakfasts at school weaken the parent-child bond.
It makes much more sense for the mother to eat the last cup of Ramen noodles and then nurse her fourth grader -- that way nobody goes hungry, and it creates a bond like Krazy Glue!
 Hundreds of thousands of parents who are able, and happy, to provide their child with breakfast have accepted the offer — because anything free is too enticing for an increasing number of Americans. 
Yeah, that's...bullshit.  There are many more people eligible for the program than use it, which is what Breakfast in the Classroom was trying to correct.  But I guess these moochers are too lazy to even take a hand-out.
But what they have done is made the proverbial deal with the devil. They have traded in one of the most fundamental definitions of parenthood — providing one’s children with food — for a dollar and for a little less work as a parent. As a result, these parents become less of a parent to their child.
"I dunno, Mom...I just respected you more when I had a distended belly and rickets."
And fourth, the free breakfast profoundly weakens young people’s character. When you grow up learning to depend on the state, you will almost inevitably — even understandably — assume that the state will take care of you. And you will grow up also assuming — as do Europeans, who give far less to charity than Americans for this very reason — that the state will take care of your fellow citizens, including your own children.
On the up side, shortened lifespan is one of the dependable effects of childhood malnutrition, so a lot of these losers won't grow up to assume anything.  On the downside, thanks to their weak character and reliance on social services rather than private charities, the Dutch are now taller than us.
These are the ways in which the Left has damaged children and families through free school breakfasts.
This is the first time I have ever read an essay where the phrase "he wants to take food from the mouths of hungry children" is not a hyperbolic interpretation by the reader, but the author's actual thesis statement.
But it gets worse. “Canceling” the program does not mean ending it. 
Remember, the program is not being canceled because of its destructive effects on students and family life. The reasons it is being canceled are that rodents and insects infest classrooms and that classroom learning time is wasted while the children stretch out breakfast-eating time.
You should probably also remember that "canceling" doesn't mean "canceling" either, since LAUSD is expanding the program, not ending it.
Therefore, the program is being shifted to the schools’ cafeterias. The public-employee unions, which govern the state of California and the city of Los Angeles, have demanded that the program be shifted from the classroom to the school cafeterias so as to employ more cafeteria workers.
Or because it was delaying the start of the instructional day, and teachers are more concerned with cramming in a little actual teaching time between all the standardized testing they're required to do than they are with featherbedding the Lunch Lady muster.
Virtually everything the Left touches is either immediately or eventually harmful. The free-breakfast program is only one, albeit a particularly dramatic, example.
Left Must Wash Hands Before Handling Food Programs.
Why, then, do progressives advocate it?
Because children are going hungry and we can easily do something about it?
Because it meets three essential characteristics of the left wing: It strengthens the state; it has governmental authority replace parental authority; and, perhaps most important, it makes progressives feel good about themselves. The overriding concern of the Left is not whether a program does good. It is whether it feels good.
So progressives don't do good (such as feeding hungry children) simply because it's good, or even because it makes them feel good, but only because it makes them feel good about themselves.  I'd be tempted to suggest that Chancellor Prager writes 750 word columns demanding that bread be dashed from the hands of orphans just because doing bad makes him feel good, but even I'm not cynical enough to believe that, because it would suggest that Dennis Prager is capable of human emotion.

Okay, five minutes are up.  Where the hell's my diploma?

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Sundays With S.Z.: I Led Three Lives

Due to popular demand (well, Weird Dave nudged me in the comments below, but I understand he's really popular and kind of demanding), here is this week's edition of Sundays With S.Z., one day early, featuring the first in her multipart undercover series on the underbelly of the ubermenschen.

Originally published October 13, 2003:

World O'Crap! Surfing the entire world wide web, to bring you crap wherever it may occur.

Today our usual suspects didn't have anything that inspired us, so, in a desperate attempt to find SOMETHING to write about, we tried clicking on their ads and links. And now we bring you the results:

I Was an Undercover Conservative for World O'Crap!

I started my journey into the heart of darkness ("The Horror! The horror!") by checking out some of the The Official Ann Coulter Site links. The first stop was the horrifying Young America Foundation (WARNING: every time I visit this site, my computer freezes. I suspect they have liberal-detecting software in place).

Anyway, YAF is an organization founded to help students promote conservative values and time-honored traditions like patriotism, morality, and segregation on their campuses. The most noteworthy feature of this organization for George Bush Babies is "Club 100".
Club 100 "Where activism counts!" is the conservative movement's first and only campus activist rewards program. This unique program thanks YOU for constantly striving to promote conservative ideas to your fellow students.
And just how do I subvert my fellow students?

Well, mainly by pressuring my university to invite (and pay) conservative speakers to indoctrinate my peers. But Club 100 also offers me cell leaders . . .I mean, mentors, who will guide me in my efforts to return this country to the good old days.

Club 100 Activist Mentors 
Have you ever wanted to ask a Conservative Movement leader how to attract more members to your club or how to effectively promote conservative ideas on campus? As a member, you will have opportunities to talk with some of the Movements best strategists and tacticians. Club 100’s Activist Mentors Bay Buchanan, Reginald Jones, Star Parker, Kirby Wilbur, and Floyd Brown will offer you the chance to participate in special strategy sessions and members-only receptions.
"Strategy Sessions", "evil scheming," "plotting how to turn others to the dark side": Club100 has it all! But the best thing about Club 100 is the rewards! It's like a Frequent Flyer program for Fascism!
As you host Foundation speakers and attend Foundation programs, you will receive points for your activities. As you accumulate points throughout the year, you will receive rewards for being active. Some of these rewards include books from noted conservative authors including Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Peggy Noonan, plus conservative videos, and exclusive Foundation merchandise.
Members who tally 100 points each academic year will be invited to attend a one-of-a-kind event, the Club 100 Reagan Ranch Retreat in April 2004! Held at the El Capitan Canyon north of Santa Barbara, this all-expenses paid event brings together the nation's leading conservative student activists with the Club 100 Mentors for a unique weekend of training, discussions, and an opportunity to explore the experiences Reagan enjoyed when he spent time on his ranch.
Wow, a week of conservatism training at Reagan Ranch Retreat, where you will have an opportunity to explore the experiences Reagan enjoyed! But don't let them keep you in the BrainWashaTron too long or you'll be enjoying the experiences Reagan currently enjoys.

This all sounded so good that I submitted my application to join Club 100. If I'm admitted, I can share my stories of smiting liberals and having cake bakes for Cheney with the other Club members. But if Bob Novak blows my cover and YAF realizes I'm not really an eager young conservative named Muffy attending Oral Roberts University, I fear for my life. I'll keep you updated on this.

The next Ann-endorsed link I tried was American Patriots for True Equality, a site dedicated to honoring the victims of 9/11 by getting rid of diversity (it's what they would have wanted).
It seemed to begin as a result of 9-11-01 that a new appreciation was brought to every Americans attention, that being, the value and worth of our freedoms in this wonderful country of ours.
Even the most apathetic individual was slapped in the face with reality on that day. A day that anyone cognizant of their surroundings, will be able to recall exactly what they were doing and where they were ... on that terrible morning that was to effect all our lives in one way or another.
Truer words have never been spoken, as it WAS a day that anyone cognizant of their surroundings will be able to recall where they were. And what better way to show we value and appreciate our freedoms than by keeping others from enjoying them, by restricting immigration.
Remember when families that immigrated into our great country wanted to speak "American English" and become part of our great society? When you could telephone somewhere and not have to listen to another language before picking the "English" option? When "The American Dream" meant raising a family, securing a home and piece of property and live the American Way? There was one American culture and it was the guideline that people lived and worked and raised their Children by until beginning late in the last century when for some, "Coming to America" meant grabbing all you can, sharing a habitat with several others and "Going Back Home" with all you could loot. A majority of the immigrants today, have no respect for America, and have gotten that opinion from their own government in the countries they are emigrating from. And the sad thing is we allow it! We have to stop the illegal flow of immigrants, and drastically cut the immigrants we allow in our country legally.
Yes, remember back to prior to 1980 or so, when there was one American culture? There were no Little Italys or Chinatowns or restricted country clubs back then, dammit, for we taught our Children by the guideline of that one culture. But that all started changing when we got this new breed of immigrant who disrespects America by speaking a foreign tongue. See, the Patriots conducted a scientific survey and determined that a "majority of immigrants today have no respect for America." They're just in it for the less-than-minimum-wage jobs and the crowded living conditions! Then, when they've looted America by picking our fruit, washing our dishes, and doing our other backbreaking, smelly jobs, they'll return to their home country and talk about us in their outlandish, non-American languages. The bastards!

So, the APFTE isn't going to let any more of these foreigners into our country, because if Americans have to listen to another language on voice mail, then it means the terrorists have won.
Americas Sworn Enemies Are Usually Past or Current Recipients of "Foreign Aid" From U.S. Taxpayers, Why Do We Help Them Hate Us? The APFTE wants ALL Foreign Aid Stopped To ANY Country That Has Not Sworn An Alliance to Our Country. We must heal our wounds, and unite and fight the fanatics and those that support their actions. It is they, who are the real enemy of America - Terrorists and terrorism and let's not forget to remember the false Friends that America has generated. Those that are totally ungrateful that without our help, they would have no country to call their own. France hardly misses an opportunity to stab us in the back, and was given back to them by American Blood not once, but TWICE in the last century!
If other nations want our aid, they must swear a binding oath in which they promise to do whatever we tell them to, be properly grateful, and to love us forever. Because it is terrorists and ingrates who are the real enemy of America--so France, next time you're invaded by Germany, well, we're helping the Nazis!
Foreign and sometimes domestic Islamic "Fanatics" teach their followers that ALL Americans are "Infidels" (Unless you happen to be an American of Islamic Faith that is...) and we and our American culture is the work of the Devil, and killing us is not a sin. [snip] This terrible divisive influence on our American Culture has to be brought to light, and addressed, before the cost gets too great to pay. Freedom of religion does not give a Zealot the right to infringe on others beliefs.
The APFTE believes that No group of Americans should promote hatred towards another group of Americans.
You know, we're glad to hear you say that, APFTE, because we know of a Zealot who promotes hatred towards another group of Americans, feels that everyone who doesn't believe the way she does is an infidel (or "traitor"), and who believes that killing us is not a sin. Yes, she even said "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." And it was her link that brought us to your page, APFTE. Maybe you should stop linking back to her site, since you're all about unity and love and stuff.

And for our last journey into the weird, bizarre, and unbalanced world of Ann's friends, we stop off at WorldNetDaily ("A Free Press for a Stupid People"), which Ann lists as a news source. It's top story today:

Ex-welfare queen exposes 'Uncle Sam's Plantation' 

It's about Star Parker (one of the mentors to the Karl Rovenkinder at Club 100), who has written a book blowing the lid off welfare, which "seems to keep the poor enslaved to poverty while the rich get richer." We can believe what Star is telling us about how state-sponsored plans harm the poor, because she used to be a lying, cheating crack 'ho! Here's her story:
Once caught up in the miserable world of welfare fraud, sex, drugs and abortion, she underwent what many have called a miraculous transformation into what she is today – one of America's leading advocates for true, faith-based success and empowerment of the nation's poor.
She recommends "personal initiative, faith, and responsibility," as a way for the underclass to "release the hold poverty holds over their lives." And since her plan will allow the Bush tax-cuts to stay in place by doing away with all that money we currently waste on social programs, WorldNetDaily is all for it! I'm sure it will work for everybody else as well as it worked for Star, and anybody who isn't well-off after reading her book just isn't trying, and so doesn't deserve any help.

WorldNetDaily also gives us Barbara Simpson, "The Babe in the Bunker" (okay, so she's got a little more meat on her bones than Ann Coulter, but I'd hardly compare her to the beloved animatronic movie pig). Today she gives us the thought piece, "Liberals Love Limbaugh's Pain." Her thesis is that liberals (whom she defines in her article as "Democrats") were so angry about Schwarzenegger being elected governor (even though said Democrats are all "celebrity whores", and so were actually glad that he won), that they are now dancing in the streets upon learning that Rush is a drug addict. Well, not a DRUG ADDICT, but just someone who's addicted to drugs. Barbara says that Rush confessed all, and asked for support and prayers.
So what does he get from the liberal media? Attacks. There's no sympathy for his medical ordeals. He's equated with street junkies and his addiction is compared to that of a guy in the alley mainlining heroin. Yes, chemically, street drugs and prescription drugs are similar and yes, the effect of opiates on the body may be the same, but liberals just miss the point. Lots of points.
The points are several of the items from my handy "Being There for Rush" list for pundits (see Saturday's entry), but chiefly the "Rush only got addicted to opiates because he used them for his PAIN, unlike the street junkie who sought out opiates for his pain one. Then Barbara delivers this stinging rebuke:
The same people who have compassion for the dregs of humanity on the street and for animals and insects cannot find an ounce of compassion for Rush. And we know why.
Because they just like animals and insects better than Rush.

And speaking of WorldNetDaily and being understanding of others, we loved yesterday's top story:
Cross-Dressing Wiccan Official Sparks Christian Mission Probe
A Christian mission serving homeless people since 1939 is under investigation for discrimination because its walls are adorned with crosses and other religious imagery. The probe was prompted by a city fair-housing investigator, who also happens to be a cross-dressing Wiccan.
See, this West Virgininian cross-dressing Wiccan did his investigation and now Charleston's Human Relations Commission is looking at the mission:
The commission voted last month to scrutinize the mission's policies, which include barring drugs and alcohol and not allowing unmarried couples to sleep in the same room. The panel, which enforces the state's fair-housing laws, is looking at allegations the mission discriminates according to religion and gender. The accusations include requiring people seeking help to reveal their spiritual beliefs, serving non-Christians in facilities with Christian imagery and making married men spend two nights under "observation" in the men's dorm before joining their spouse in the family dorm, the Daily Mail said.
The mission could wait and see what the Commission's final findings and recommendations are, and then either change their policies or stop taking Federal funds. But instead they're suing to stop the probe, which their lawyer says seeks to "put a cork in the First Amendment rights" of their pastor. The lawyer asks, "How would you like them to come into your church and tear the cross down?"

Well, since my church doesn't have a cross, I guess it would be just okay. But what I'm interested in is how WorldNetDaily (and the Pulitzer-winning Charleston Daily Mail, which is where WorldNet got their info), knew that the inspector was a cross-dressing Wiccan.

Apparently, the first clue was that he filed his report, because "Nobody, unless they had an agenda, would do this," claims the lawyer. Well, maybe a Fair Housing inspector would, if that was his job.

But somebody did a web search and found that the investigator had a website. And on that site was a piece he had written "which criticizes religious institutions for creating a culture that punishes non-traditional definitions of masculinity and femininity." Um, okay--he's a Wiccan, all right.

But how did his cross-dressing come to light? Per WorldNetDaily, "The Daily Mail said Napier occasionally dresses in women's clothes and performs as a drag queen under the stage name Miss Ilene Over." So, I guess somebody from the mission must have caught Ilene's act -- while ministering to the homeless, of couse. We await further stories about the dangers posed by cross-dressing Wiccans, and urge all of you to be on the lookout for Badly-Dressed Atheists.

So, Ann's neighborhood. A scary place to visit, but we wouldn't want to live there.

Tune in tomorrow when we infiltrate Consertative Matchmaker.com, EHarmony.com, and National Review for Kids. If YAF hasn't terminated us by then.

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