Why throw rocks at a junkyard dog?

The Garland TX Mohammed cartoon shootings, our little version of Charlie Hebdo - ISIS is now claiming responsibility which even if true you'd think they'd be a bit hesitant as it hardly came off in their favor, not their best work you could say. Pamela Geller of her American Freedom Defense Initiative coordinated this event in TX and from what I understand it was some sort of cartoon contest for who could come up with the best sketch of the Prophet Mohammed I guess. I might be in the minority but her subway ads in NYC which the MTA had a huge problem with I don't find them the least bit offensive. I'm sure you've heard of them and they always have the angle of radical Islamists are anti-Semitic which they are so it's kind of hard for me to unravel just why the MTA has their collective knickers in a twist. However having said that what was the point of this little sketchathon in Garland TX? Are they suddenly interested in this particular faith system? Are they contributing to global culture? Was the whole affair designed to be provocative? (x) I'm thinking we have enough to worry about. Thanks guys and gals and all you Bob Ross wannabes.

Why I won't be seeing "American Sniper"

It's not that I think it's an immoral movie or the late US sniper Chris Kyle didn't do what was necessary during time of war but philosophically I'm not really into violence so I don't feel the compulsion to go out and see it. What he did in Iraq, his job if you will I can't really quibble with but should it be celebrated? Personally speaking I never held up the pilot of the Enola Gay as a hero of mine, I prefer to think of MLK, Ghandi or the police officers who are killed yearly in the line of duty. I very rarely actually go out to the movies anymore, maybe once or twice a year at best. Last one I saw was the Mockingjay movie only because I read the Hunger Games trilogy and I want to be consistent. Drone strikes against terrorists, sniping and all that - BB's more of a fan but the problem is more Hydra-like. You drone one or two terrorists and ten or twenty more are ready to take their place. I'm reminded of cockroaches and the problem is it's never really solved. In fact it's easier to get rid of cockroaches. OK so I'm not on this movie bandwagon to go out and see it at least not right now:)

Obama's very liberal 2nd Inaugural Address

The Leftward Tsunami is coming, conservatives better head for the hills.  Obama riding the back of Leviathan, there's a Dali painting in there somewhere and at long last his speech finally dispelled the myth of his centrism.  The NY Times proudly used the term "liberal" on its front page and it's pretty clear he's gonna do what he wants in his second term and why not? the American people gave it to him.  The msm will have his back of course, well maybe not Jake Tapper but he's gone rogue.  Obama has this very annoying but shrewd polemical habit I've noted, if you don't agree with him or otherwise want to work with him you're an extremist, an absolutist, bad for the Republic and in this way he casts himself as the reasoned and civil moderate when in reality what people are really against is his liberalism.  This is defining the terms of the debate from the getgo (what debate?) and in psychological terms is called invalidation ("you're irrational").  There've been a few liberal invalidating comments posted of late on this very blogpage.  For instance if you don't agree with me you're incapable of processing my opinion i.e. reason.  It's clear Obama doesn't want to work with conservatives, he is divisive and polarizing as usual and he'll never change.  The speech covered the usual liberal gamut from gay rights to gun control, immigration reform and entitlements to climate change and it's clear LI Rep. Peter King was starstruck by the Beyonce/Jay-Z couple as he eagerly whipped out his picture phone like any stalkerazzi approaching deadline.  OK OK so perhaps BB and Saty can explain to me AND the Ole Gray Lady why his very well-received second inaugural address wasn't liberal:)

Liberals and the religion of peace

US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three embassy staff were killed in an attack on the Benghazi Consulate in Libya by Islamist gunmen and a safe house was also attacked.  There was another attack on our embassy in Cairo and the Muslim mobs were outraged by some amateurish movie they feel insulted the Prophet Mohammed.  They're blaming America for the film which makes Mohammed into a philandering fool and religious phony not apparently understanding or caring to understand that our free speech system comes with the disclaimer these are the views of others but that's over the heads of these Fred Flintstone religionists.  We now have Islamists in power in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia the fruits of the so-called Arab Spring.  So what happened when Christians had their beliefs and Savior insulted when artist Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" came out and when another artiste Chris Ofili disparaged the Blessed Virgin Mary by putting elephant dung on her?  Well...NOTHING but who do liberals see as the bigger threat to freedom though? not the Islamists of course, the Christians.  Romney is blaming Obama's mixed signals in the Middle East for the latest tragic events and that's valid and is this the way they repay Obama's past outreach to the Muslim world?  Seems too Obama's little post-convention bounce is gone, the sugar-high, the little orgasm and now it's back to business.  Our domestic economy to put the most positive spin on it is making a glacial recovery and the world is getting more dangerous by the day, can Obama ride the tide? 

The real problem with Higher Education

Sometimes conservatives overly misdiagnose the Problem.  For instance you'd think there was a veritable epidemic of bad teachers in the NYC public schools system and for this reason teacher ratings and evaluations need to be made public not tomorrow but NOW.  Conservatives love this particular bandwagon but I say it's the kids, home-training.  With Higher Education, colleges and universities conservatives say the problem is liberal bias.  Well yeah there's some of that, having two years of college under my belt you could sense it from time to time but I really don't care, whatever floats your boat.  You have a political leaning well if the students know where you're coming from I don't see the problem but the real problem in a nutshell is that colleges and universities make you take courses you're never gonna use in Life.  Went to that Catholic institution for two years and they made us take an advanced math class so this older white-haired priest is writing calculus equations on the board, really breezing along with his chalk and I'm like what in hell? I'm never gonna use this in my day-to-day.  Then we had to go to the college bookstore on the corner of course and buy our own textbooks which cost a small fortune and I remember thinking back then in high school the class that just made it to the next grade just passed their books down to the next generation of students gratis.  What a racket!  One of my younger male managers going back a few years said after high school he just wanted to dive right into the workforce, make money and so he went with chefing and avoided the whole higher education experience.  Practical skills you learn by actually doing, how to make money, interacting with people and customers and learning new trades on the spot.  Better for the economy.  I'm glad to see a few conservatives like Maggie Gallagher more or less put down the whole college experience as a serious waste of time, you're gonna spend years paying back that student loan and what exactly are you gonna do with that advanced art or history degree anyway?  Education is one of the most controversial issues in this country, everyone has an opinion.  I say kids don't need to be taught how to masturbate just how to make the dinars:)

Watson is my boss

Have a friend who works in a supermarket and he told me the other day that when the workers punch in now there's a handy device on the wall with a lens that scans their thumbprint. Fred Flintstone with his punchcard is so yesterday. You'd think a deli clerk or a part-time butcher were working for the CIA or the FBI or Interpol and I'm not even sure they do this (side issue -- why do so many women who work in supermarkets have man hands?). What's next, retinal-scans like in Minority Report? So the name of the company the supermarket contracted with is, get this, KRONOS. Why that? sounds too sci-fi to me, a little off I said and my friend gave me the deep background on Kronos. Seems in mythology Kronos was the father of Zeus and there was a prophecy that one of Kronos' sons was gonna do Dad in, kill him and take over so when they were born Kronos ate Poseiden and Hades. Who says ancient Greek/Roman mythology is boring? it's chockful of Sex and Violence. Anyways Zeus' mother knew what was coming so when she was pregnant with Zeus and gave birth she wrapped a big old rock in some swaddling clothes and Kronos ate it. Zeus later cut off Kronos' testicles and penis and threw it in the ocean where it gave rise to Aphrodite. You remember Venus in a pink shell don't ya? Now all that's fine for a college lit class but why would a major technical company choose such a name with such a negative bio behind it and why would a major food chain even do business with them? and how come the Union never got involved and issue a statement or even inform its members? It's because the New World Order'ers are Weird that's why, everyday is a Renaissance Festival inside their heads. BTW the term for scanning your thumbprint to start work and punch in and out for Lunch and go home later is biometric, remember that word and the whole stated rationale is that some workers are using other workers to clock themselves in using their punchcards. Old story new solution. Well that's the cover story anyway but my gut tells me there's more, much more to the story like that cat Willow that wandered all the way from Colorado to New York City and was lost for five years until some shelter ID'ed him 'cause the family had a microchip put in him, that's gonna be YOU in the not too distant future ("Don't worry m'am, Hank's just having an affair"). Now who's behind all this? I'd say our friends the Masons, those who like to worship statues of owls in the Bohemian Grove and stuff like that, a little Osiris action. Basically they're Nutz and now we hear that Watson is gonna look over some folks' medical records and make instant diagnoses, save time and money. The times they're'a gettin' weird:)

A kind of closet environmentalist

Yesterday I took my long customary walk from Woodlands Lake in Ardsley, Westchester County NY all the way up to Rte. 119 in Elmsford figuring maybe the beavers moved downstream after all these years. When we were kids my Dad took us to Warehouse Lane in Elmsford off 9A where UPS is and where the Saw Mill River meanders its way through on its eventual destination in the Hudson River and we observed the local beaver population busy at work building their lodges and dams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver). Now there's much more industry here, there's a Sam's Club where the drive-in theater used to be and Masters Department Store has been replaced by a huge multiplex showcasing the latest in Hollywood dreck. Warehouse Lane, home to a huge Coca-Cola plant, FedEx, Conway Freight, Nestle Foods (Poland Spring and Deer Park trucks parked outside), a tire and auto place and San-Mar Laboratories, the Elmsford Animal Shelter and other assorted places of business. Over down 9A a bit by where you get on 287 is a Romantic Depot, an overpriced porn hut. Browser packs, a clown fucking some fat woman or maybe that's Giggles. It kind of melds together in your mind after awhile in one big existential landfill but I mean at least strive for Art. Wendy's, KFC, Grainger's, Rosedale Nurseries more in Hawthorne where the Saw Mill is very picturesque here and quaint like something out of a jigsaw puzzle. If Rush lived here he'd probably think it's all good, a hustling and bustling area, good population and jobs galore but you'd think a beaver population would be special, a kind of nurtured and protected area. Do we have ANY sense of the environment anymore? Does that make me an environmental wacko? maybe in his book but I'm just someone who would like the Dads of today to be able to take their kids there and learn something about Nature, about this special rodent that had been so heavily and tragically decimated back in the day, to see something they don't teach in school anymore because they're too busy learning about the Gay Lifestyle instead. Been meaning to ask btw, Powerwalkers with their weird arm movements, what's that supposed to do for you?

The world will end not with a bang but a whimper

I hardly noticed, I mean the seamless transition was so smooth. The phrase comes from poet T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" and I'm gonna make a bold prediction here. The world will end when the Sun runs out of fuel. I haven't worked on the calculations yet but it involves literally millions of years. According to 89-year old preacher Harold Camping the World As We Know It was supposed to end this past Saturday at 6PM. Went to work the next day and the place was unusually slow for a Sunday afternoon in a food place so I says to a co-worker you know why it's slow right? All the good folk have been Raptured up and you're always going to Giggles (you have to be around these parts to get the joke). He said to me "you have five months." Yeah go through your hardcore I said and start throwing the shit out, softcore too buddy before the angels with the flaming swords start knocking on people's doors. I'm not against the world ending, it should but you have to be a fool to predict when. One of the readings this past Sunday had to do with only the Father knows when the world is going to end, apparently He didn't share this info with the Son. That's interesting and one of the curiouser passages from Scripture along with those unforgiveable sins against the Holy Spirit. Of course the world doesn't have to end per se, more likely humanity might just kill itself off by then. Think Charlton Heston in front of the Statue of Liberty (fave line from that movie: "you damn dirty ape!"). Our Lady of La Salette said "in the Last Days Rome itself will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist" and then the Three Days of Darkness and the earth will renew itself and mankind will start over basically with the unrepentant in "the everlasting chasms of Hell." I think the Protestants especially the evangelical crowd take the End Times more seriously than the Catholics, Catholics only care if they can get a last game of Bingo in. As I said everything after bin Laden is anti-climax, we have to have something to fill the weekly newscycle. Religion and Sex lately:)

An Oscar thought

I don't watch 'em. The only two movies I saw last year was Inception and Wall Street 2 - Money Never Sleeps. I had this thought though, Italians seem to be the only ethnic group happy with their portrayal in the movies (Jersey Shore doesn't count) and btw I'm not talking about official Italian-American spokesgroups just folks you work with and hang with every day (I had to add this because I know BB is hunting up a link right now). I asked as least three Italians at work how many times they saw The Godfather and they all said so many times they lost count. Goodfellas, another popular flick second only to Marlon Brando, ripe for discussion. All other groups - the Irish don't like it when they're portrayed as drinkers, Puerto Ricans don't like it when they're drug dealers and OF COURSE Muslims don't like it when they're cast as terrorists - the other ethnicities and tribes all have their issues but

The Godfather

the best movie Of All Time hands down and you can bet they own the Trilogy. You don't hear them talk about Citizen Kane for instance or The Maltese Falcon or The Ox-Bow Incident and as one Italian guy I work with noted "every time you watch The Godfather you pick up something new that wasn't there before." That's quite a work of Art. Of course this is just another one of my over-generalizations as Shaw will no doubt point out, maybe it's just the ones I work with and oh, watch what you say about Frank Sinatra. The two mozzarella boys made a delivery to us a few years back and my co-chef said something about Frank Sinatra that was less than glowing and while the boys were busy hustling 'n' bustling, they had to make their rounds they both stopped dead in their tracks and just looked or rather glared at the guy and there was silence in the kitchen. I told him ya gotta watch what you say about the Chairman of the Board. The black guy at work said they don't get offended by gangster flicks because they know it's true. As for the Awards you're free to discuss, I just won't know what you're talking about.

I found this fascinating

Woke up this morning and didn't know what to blog about exactly, different thoughts in a kind of formless mass. Since others' loved ones having health issues is a recurring theme I looked up some stuff from an old book I once read to kind of refresh the old memory base and before long I became absolutely absorbed. This is from the book Beyond MS: It's All in the Image by Nancy A. Bent, Ph.D (Brandon House, NY - 1995) and it's from the Introduction by Dr. Akhter Ahsen called "The Art of Restoration":

"...(Eidetic Image Therapy) is meant as a procedure of return to the natural state of health, not as an emphasis on disease...As was said earlier Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' turned out to be a painting not of the night, as was thought, but of the morning, just the opposite. It had so much varnish on it and had accumulated so much dirt over the years that it only looked like a night scene. That is an apt metaphor for what a patient usually is - a night scene...It is the person's own psyche that moves the limbs and not another individual who externally moves around or massages the body muscles because the true knowledge of movement and healing is only procurable when the person deeply initiates the activity from within."

Here, you can read the whole thing at: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-MS-Its-All-Image/dp/0913412848#reader_0913412848

Think about it and it's true, during the course of your day it's your own Mind which moves your limbs and your body in ways that you want without you even thinking about it. I think that is part of the gist of the passage I just quoted and for me points to Rene Descartes' ghost in the machine. The original functioning of the organism according to its DNA blueprint, that is the goal of modern eidetics. The part about Rembrandt's classic Night Watch (1642) is most interesting. Here was a painting that was commissioned by Captain Banning Cocq and several members of his civic guards as a kind of group portrait and was originally 13' X 16' and had 34 figures in it. It had so much dirt and varnish on it over the years as that is the nature of art collecting that only after WWII was it properly restored according to the artist's original vision and became known as Day Watch.

Every now and then we're gonna get a little culture under our belts.

The Existential Blog

The fishbowl known as work, the personal questions. Usually there can't be that much work to do if they're grilling you. My Life is fucked up OK? I don't know how I got here. You embellish your answers which is tricky when you're not ready and haven't rehearsed but lurking underneath is The Judgement and you quickly extricate yourself by making a beeline for the Men's Room. When you lose weight people act strange around you. Friend knows I've been dieting and I told him before I picked him up the other day I just had a McRib but he buys me a cheese danish anyway so I ate it to be polite. When you're shedding the pounds real quick there are counterforces at work, the Counter-Conspiracy so we're eating at Stew Leonard's and I'm by the salad bar getting my tuna and whatever else and he's packing it on at the hot food buffet as if to show me and he goes "I'm not judging you" which is fine but why'd he say I'm not judging you? It's we're either all gonna lose weight together, simultaneous-like or not at all. Obama's extending the Bush tax cuts, good for him. Well absinthe is back on the market, a little Van Gogh/Wormwood action. Now just the other day at work everyone was stupendously happy which is fine but more than a little strange for your typical go-back-to-work Monday and so the woman packs out the blue cheese crumbles in their containers but prices them all as roasted porkloin. Get that thujone rockin' for the Holidays!! Wikipedia -- no fan of Assange but you can't tell me those rape prosecutions aren't politically motivated. Let me play catchup and see what I missed. BTW I cracked the 3rd Secret, we're all going to Hell.

The Avatar Phenomenon

Haven't seen it yet. My friend did, he's really into this kind of stuff but if anything they come out on DVD so fast now I'll probably see it then at my leisure. Yeah my friend thought it was great and all, definitely a watchable flick but this James Cameron guy saying he had this concept of the blue humanoids since he was a kid, trying to give it that old artiste edge, the creative genius who had to wait literally years for IT to all come together like it's the greatest opus of all time or something. Yeah right!! my friend said he probably had some weird acid trip and just wrote it all down afterwards. Highest grossing film of all time surpassing even his previous work Titanic and I'm sure when the DVD finally does come out it'll be chock loaded with Extra Features including that annoying option of watching the movie with the acclaimed director's commentary throughout. They always have those extra 10 unedited minutes too like I hear Mel Gibson has an extended version of The Passion where you can see Jesus getting scourged for a few extra minutes or so. Anyway wha'd'ya think?

Obama's erotic dreams of socialism

In case you missed it by now there's some sort of liberal consensus out there that we conservatives all go to the Big K whenever they have a big tinfoil hat sale. Well yeah to call Obama a socialist you have to wear a tinfoil hat so just the other day I got my new issue of The Fatima Crusader in the mail, Issue 93 - August 2009. Hey it may not be most people's main source of information here but the themes are the same and that's the beauty of the VRWC, many segments are deliberately kept in the dark about the other factions, it truly is what the V stands for and is as complicated as Whitewater so that should the day ever come when THEY decide to prosecute us it'll be too, shall we say like that George Clooney movie Syriana. Anyway an article by traditionalist Catholic writer John Vennari is germane here: We Must Choose Between Our Lady of Fatima's Plan for Peace vs. the New World Order Tyranny (http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr93/cr93pg37.pdf) Now to those of you whose eyes glaze over at every mention of the supernatural there's enough Glenn Beck stuff here to really sink your teeth into. A recap:

"Obama is essentially a left-wing radical, he is a globalist and he is one of the most (if not the most) pro-abortion political leaders on the planet...In a January 5 interview of CNBC on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Kissinger, speaking of Obama and the current economic crisis, said, "I think that his task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period, when really a 'new world order' can be created. It's a great opportunity. It isn't such a crisis." There's some stuff on the Bilderbergers and "one of the main aims of the New World Order is to erode the national sovereignty of nations in favor of an international world government." yada yada yada David Rockefeller, special interests...oh God he's even more pro-abortion than Barbara Boxer!! Oh yes and then there's Saul Alinsky, radical left-wing organizer who died in 1972, Obama a big student thereof. The Rules for Radicals, Chicago, "it is crucial for the radical not to look like a radical" (hmmmmm.....). In a 2001 radio interview Obama said the liberal Warren Court didn't go far enough, didn't "break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution" meaning redistribution of wealth for instance but you already knew that if you're good Glenn Beck fans. Education and health-care, euthanasia down the road, globalism and the UN, cap 'n' trade, climate change, communist treaties, government should raise your kid yada yada but I saved the best for last. The People's Weekly World which is the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA sees Obama as "the best opportunity in decades" (so where do they get their tinfoil hats?).

WHEW, let me give my fingers a rest. President Obama, you must be giving out the wrong signals dude! Hugo Chavez likes you, the Castro brothers don't think you're half bad, you pleased Putin, some Norwegian socialists gave you their highest prize (the Dalai Lama is soooo yesterday) and now the official paper of the Communist Party USA thinks you're great. They say they can tell you're one of them, they just know even if you don't yet. Maybe there's a latency here, some erotic dreams never talked about but if I were him I'd take a day (or two) and take a walk down by the lake without the wife and kids, go out on the pier in the fading sunset and skim a few pebbles across the lake and take stock, sort things out, work on some issues. SO WHY IN HELL DO SO MANY RADICALS IN THE WORLD LIKE ME??? The right-wing, they're nuts of course and yet the commies and the socialists just love me, well they don't exactly hate me like Ronald Reagan...hell call Michelle and take a couple more days and hit the cabin, you need to be alone, every Man needs to, call it a retreat. It's like when you're shopping in the supermarket and some perv comes on to you or when you went to high school the quirkiest kid in the class shunned by all the others took a liking to you and sat next to you and tried to be your friend. The right-wing is telling you you're a commie, the left-wing is telling you you're a commie. If you ask me there's some serious VIBE action going on here. Everyone thinks you're in the closet dude, whassup?!? time to get......reorientated?

Conservatives secretly in love with the demigod

Seems the topic du jour this morning on the talk shows is Peggy Noonan's column in the Wall Street Journal basically saying what any good Democrat would say, that Sarah Palin is not ready to be the Chief Executive and that this reflects poorly on McCain's judgement. This former Reagan speechwriter must have had an erotic dream about Bam and you know what they say, when you dream about someone you really want that person. If Salvador Dali were alive today a classic going for many millions would be a surreal image of Bam arising out of the ocean with his giant magic phallus bestowing peace and love and brotherhood upon the whole world.

Other big or I should say overrated story is Colin Powell's endorsement of Bam. I used to work with this young liberal Puerto Rican guy from the Bronx, one of those political junkies but on the other side, might as well be blogging for the Daily Kos so anyway we're rapping one day and I throw out that I thought Republicans have done more for African-Americans in general like putting them in key spots and I brought up Colin Powell and Condi Rice and he goes "yeah, those are house niggers." He might as well have said Scatman Crothers and Corey should be janitors at the White House (W: "Corey, throw another log on the fire"). It's kind of Life's Little Ironies that a few liberals I have encountered in my day-to-day travels are far more likely to use the N-word to sprinkle their speech than us racist conservatives, because they're liberals who are for all the right programs to help blacks down through the years they carry around in their wallet next to their Sam's Club membership card and their TGIF pass a License to Use the N-Word to be renewed every three years. Now I have a diverse workplace and he'd walk around all day referring to just people in general as "these niggers and I went to the mall the other day" and his general tally for n-wording might be 10-15X a day, I kid you not, and he'd freely verbalize in front of our black co-workers as well but it was accepted. Me? if I so much as used the word "niggardly" as in "the honchos are being very niggardly with their budget this year" it'd be "Z, come to the office NOW!" and there'd be no "please" qualifier or "when you get a chance." Well anyway Colin Powell was never a conservative in the first place and I've always found him vaguely annoying, his sense of his own self-importance ("I am about to pronouce"). He reminds me of a manager at work who won't always say HI to you in the men's room, he 's better than you, he knows it, you know it, he's on the computer in his office and you walk through and go "how 'bout that game last night" and he doesn't respond.

Art & Life

Why can't life be more like an old-time movie, at least some of the time? In many ways I prefer Art to Reality and art is often a reflection of what reality should be as in the 1967 movie The Graduate which made Dustin Hoffman a star. For some this is a movie about adultery but for me I was more captivated by the larger love story of the last third of the film where Benjamin Braddock goes off to Berkeley to find Elaine so he can marry her. Ben had had an affair with her mother, Mrs. Robinson, and Elaine can't forgive him and so she tries to forget about him and is set to marry a young doctor. During the ceremony at a Presbyterian church bride and groom are about to kiss each other when Ben screams "Elaine" over and over from the church choir and the movie ends with Ben stealing her away and they live happily ever after.

The trouble with pc is that it is never poetic, the proper thing for Ben to have done would have been to forget about Elaine and get on with his life and she could get on with hers. If this happened in real life Ben would be arrested for stalking and harassment but Ben does the heroic thing over the proper thing to do. This was the Second Golden Age of Movies, the period from the late '60s through the '70s, as movies then portrayed real life with real emotions, they had real storylines and you don't seem to get this quality in the cinema anymore. The Graduate has turned into Redeye but Ben is my kind of character and hats off to him, if only more people sensed the potential for art in real life instead of getting all uppity. The Simon and Garfunkel score was just the icing on the cake, a DVD worth having in your collection. People who masturbate your mind

You read one you read them all

I'm in Borders before and I see this new book by liberal feminist Susan Estrich, Soulless - Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate, a clever play on Ann's own book and this is pretty much the political discourse these days, some rightie or leftie pens a book and then someone else pens a rebuttal to that book. I used to read these books more but then quickly tired of them as I am mostly conservative/libertarian in bent but not overly ideological. The Left has been pretty much dominant in every sphere of modern life the last few decades so how can Estrich blame the Right if they are reacting to the influence of the Left? If the other ball dropped and it was the Right with all the clout the leftie books would pretty much come across as hateful too. Much of my own blogging has been a reaction to the political ideology of feminism and frankly I don't much care how I come across. There are no sacred cows in my book and I think when the Left or the Right has too much influence then some criticism of that movement is called for. I am a reactionary at heart and I remember radio host Jay Diamond applying this to callers when he said "if somebody comes across as too pro-abortion then I become pro-life" (and vice versa) and so while I wouldn't apply this to abortion as my views are pretty much set I do have that yin/yang principle in my makeup that Jay refers to, if a bunch of men banded together and formed a movement to defend getting a woman drunk and then taking advantage of her or what's the big deal with slapping that bitch around a little? she probably deserved it anyway then I'd be a passionate feminist. It's a shame though that today's major political thinkers and writers are so set in their ways, I think the people suffer as a result.

National Review writer Ramesh Ponnuru, whom I agree with most of the time, analyzes the recent election as a "conservative crackup" and even says that conservatives need to drop their opposition to big government. My views are really becoming more outside the mainstream everyday now, the great conservative movers and shakers have spoken, Reagan's notion of limited government may have a nostalgic sense but hey, who really wants to abolish the Department of Education or the National Endowment for the Arts? What were we thinking? How come we never hear of a great liberal crackup? That's because they don't argue their differences in public, they are more united than us and so have become more dominant and accomplish more. We could take a lesson. People who masturbate your mind