by La Shawn on September 24, 2004
in Bloggers
I have a looooong blogroll, and I’d like to highlight a few new bloggers.
Words can’t express how happy I was to find bloggers like this. Duane is a conservative blogger doing his thing. Check out this post title: “Weak and Insecure African-Americans Need Hand-Holding.” It warms my heart to know I’m not alone!
Welcome Phil Dillon, Charles Chapman, Conservative Eyes, Conservative Rant, Non-Box Thinking, BlackPundit, The Running Conservative, Rustling Leaves, Grace Marzioli (cool name), Outwit, Outblog, Outsnark (cool design), The Steiner Aid, Bittersweet, Fight the Good Fight, Commonwealth Conservative, Republican Jen and many others, to the blogosphere. It’s growing bigger everyday!
Demond Hunter is a soldier in Iraq defending our freedom, and in his spare time, he blogs. One of his comments brought tears to my eyes. I’m in awe of this father and husband, selflessly risking his life.
You may remember my post about Ambra of “Ambra and Avery.” She’s not a new blogger, but she’s a new professional writer. Ambra’s first and second columns have been published. Check her out!
In about a month-and-a-half, I will celebrate my one-year “blogiversary.” Since November 2003, my readership has steadily grown. What began as a between-columns-rant has turned into a-new-column-everyday exercise, and I want to thank everyone who reads my blog.
Every blogger wants readers, even though some pretend not to care. Let’s face it: we’re not out here in the blogosphere writing for ourselves and two other people. We want to reach and influence as many as possible. Most of us will never be an Instapundit (although I want to be as influential and widely-read), but having a small audience is more than enough to feel like we’re making a contribution to the world.
There’s nothing like immediate feedback, either, and I thank all commenters. Some of you agree with everything I write and others agree with absolutely nothing. Still others take issue with some of my views. I appreciate every single one of you! 
In August, I posted an entry about building a readership, and I’d like to re-run it for new bloggers wondering how it’s done. Make sure you read the other post I link to. There’s no secret. It takes discipline, stamina, perseverance and interesting posts. And a “hook” wouldn’t hurt. For instance, I’m an evangelical Christian who’s an outspoken political conservative. And I’m black. I don’t like to bring race into it, but it is part of my “blog-appeal.” The top ten bloggers in the ecosystem are white males, and I’m certain most bloggers are.
Happy Friday, everybody!
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Update II: Talk about a bucket of cold water…A commenter says the story I cited this morning has been corrected by the editor (can’t they do anything right?):
This story is based on an editorial error. From that page: This article has been corrected from the version published in the newspaper and online Friday morning to reflect that Bill Burkett was referring to conversations with CBS when he said, “They tried to convince me as to why I should give them the documents.” The earlier version incorrectly reported that he had discussed the documents with Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign.
I’m not taking down Pooh Bear down, however.
Update: “CBS source denies plotting with Kerry.”
Joe Lockhart’s hand is stuck in the honey jar. Drudge is reporting:
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by La Shawn on September 23, 2004
in Bloggers
Neophyte Pundit hosts this week’s Christian Carnival. I wish I had time to read them all, but I recommend these:
1) Kyle French’s review of No Place For Truth, Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?
2) How is the blogging revolution similar to the Protestant Reformation? Ask Travelling Shoes.
3) JollyBlogger (always good) is “Still Trying to Get the Gospel.”
Also visit The Eleven Day Empire, this week’s Carnival of the Vanities host.
The Carnival of the Bush Bloggers is also up.
Don’t forget to check out the first Storyblogging Carnival. Joining this carnival is a great way for bloggers to showcase their fiction writing talents.
The Watcher’s Council is still mulling over those submissions, so I’ll let you know who wins.
Update (9/24): Watcher’s Council Winners: “The Barrier to Defeating Terrorism” by Terrorism Unveiled and “The Fall of the Media Empire” by Cavalier’s Guardian WatchBlog. Always a bridesmaid… 
by La Shawn on September 23, 2004
in Lunacy
For those of you who were reading my blog back in February, you may remember a couple of posts about Elyse Crystall, a liberal professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The school is apparently a southern outpost for PC-America.
Mike S. Adams, a conservative and professor at the school (and one of my favorite columnists) skewers liberal academia on a weekly basis in his column for Townhall.com.
Adams exposed Crystall as the raging leftist she is after her attempt to suppress the speech of a conservative student. She also ridiculed him by sending e-mails about the matter to other students! In a class called “Literature and Cultural Diversity”, the student had the nerve to say homosexuality was “disgusting.” I guess the professor doesn’t appreciate cultural “diversity” of ideas, does she?
Crystall wasn’t fired, unfortunately, but she had to apologize. Additionally, a monitor was sent to observe her class for the rest of that semester. I know she hated that. (See these posts for my take on the matter.)
Here’s an update on the situation. The Department of Education said Crystall’s e-mail campaign constituted discrimination and harassment. Because the school handled the situation properly, however, no federal sanctions are forthcoming. Lucky libs!
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by La Shawn on September 23, 2004
in General
This is the sort of thing people are going to have to get over:
The reunion Saturday is only for those who graduated from Washington High School before it opened its doors to black students in the fall of 1969.
Some black leaders say the all-white reunion is sad and painful evidence that 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school segregation, some things have not changed all that much in this community on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
“It’s just as divided as it’s ever been,” said Leon Johnson, a black political activist who worked behind the scenes in Somerset County in 1960s. “The old folks did a good job of teaching the young ones, of teaching them the old system.”
Wait a minute. Let’s assess: 1) Let’s say the class of 1952 wants to hold a reunion and there were no blacks at the school in 1952. Why would black people attend the Class of ‘52 reunion? My mother graduated from an all-black, pre-integration high school. Can you guess what color the class reunion attendees were? Good grief.
2) Things have changed. The Brown case sought to outlaw government-sanctioned discrimination, and it accomplished that goal. Alarmist, America-is-still-racist articles like this make me queasy. Pardon me.
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by La Shawn on September 23, 2004
in Columns
Speaking of bold, if you’re not acquainted with Ann Coulter, you’re missing out. I’m not as bold as she. Her comments are sometimes so sharp, they make me cringe. I like her, though. I met her last year at a book signing and she was very nice. She’s probably nice to liberals in person, too. But I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side:
A basic canon of journalism is not to place all your faith in a lunatic stuck on something that happened years ago who hates the target of your story and has been babbling nonsense about him for years. And that’s true even if you yourself are a lunatic stuck on something that happened years ago (an on-air paddling from Bush 41) who hates the target of your own story and has been babbling nonsense about him for years, Dan.
CBS’ sole source authenticating the forged National Guard documents is Bill Burkett, who’s about as sane as Margot Kidder was when they dragged her filthy, toothless butt out of somebody’s shrubs a few years back. Burkett has compared Bush to Hitler and Napoleon, and rambles on about Bush’s “demonic personality shortcomings.” (This would put Burkett on roughly the same page as Al Gore.)
At a minimum, the viewing public should have been informed that CBS’ sole “unimpeachable” source of the forged anti-Bush records was textbook crank Bill Burkett in order to evaluate the information. (”Oh no, not that guy again!”) The public would know to use the same skeptical eye it uses to watch the “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather” itself.
Whoever forged these documents should not only be criminally prosecuted, but should also have his driver’s license taken away for the stupidity of using Microsoft Word to forge 1971 documents….
The “Today” show has given Kitty Kelley a chair next to Katie Couric until Election Day. (It’s now Day Seven of Kelley’s refusal to produce records concerning charges that she is in the final stages of syphilitic dementia.) At least they’re more likely to get the truth in Kitty Kelley’s book than in Doug Brinkley’s “Tour of Duty.” But Katie hasn’t had time to interview the Swift Boat veterans. [Excellent point!]
CBS showcased laughable forgeries obtained from a man literally foaming at the mouth in order to accuse the president of malfeasance. But CBS would never put a single one of the 264 Vietnam veterans on the air to say what they knew about Kerry.
That is strange, isn’t it? By journalistic “standards”, 264 veterans didn’t make the cut, but partisan hacks like Bill Burkett and Kitty Kelley do.
I’m glad someone like Ann Coulter is on my side.
Update (9/24): This is off-topic, but I wanted to post this link for a commenter.
Somebody at the Republican National Committee considers me “the press” because I was invited to listen in on a teleconference yesterday. Chairman Ed Gillespie spoke boldy about the Rathergate debacle and says he believes a crime was committed. From the after-conference press release:
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I don’t know about you, but I’m loving the infighting going on at CBS. The insidous leftist bent has finally caught up with the old dinosaurs in real-time, and I’m enjoying every hour of it. 
Everybody’s trying to put the blame on somebody else. And Dan Rather had to be forced to admit the documents might be fakes, but he still hasn’t said this:
“It is true. I don’t like George Bush and I wanted to send him back to Texas. I knew the documents were questionable, but in my zeal, I resorted to dirty tricks. I’m so ashamed for presenting to the American public forged documents. I have no excuse. Although my career ended decades ago, I’m still trying to hold on to a remnant of the past: The domination of my beloved leftist media. We had a good run, didn’t we boys? Anyway…America, I humbly beg your forgiveness.”
You think? Let’s go to the story: [click to continue…]
I was asked to explain why I believe race preferences are immoral.
Immorality is the state of being immoral. An immoral thing is that which is contrary to accepted principles of right and wrong. Morality is conformity to ideals of right human conduct. For a primer on right human conduct, I direct you to God’s word, the Bible.
Natural rights, as well as those found in the Constitution, belong to individuals, not groups. If an individual is discriminated against because of his race, he should be compensated, not his entire racial group. There is no such thing as Group Rights. An individual has a right to seek redress from injury from a particular institution, not an entire race.
Skin color preferences bestow undeserved advantage on some and undeserved burdens on others. Such an idea is anathema to democracy and freedom. Why should people be compensated for a wrong they did not suffer? Why should some be penalized for a wrong they did not commit?
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(Pictured is John Dean III, former White House counsel, being sworn in before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities in 1973.)
This post was inspired by this article, which got me to thinking about the differences and similarities between Watergate and Rathergate.
For its time, Watergate was quite dramatic, but the current scandal doesn’t have the same feel. Thirty years later, we’re much more jaded about politics, and we don’t believe journalists are objective.
For instance, we know Dan Rather and most of mainstream media are liberals who hate George Bush. That CBS aired an episode of “60 Minutes” where they attempted to discredit the president and accuse him of lying was neither shocking nor unexpected.
What might be a tad surpising is that the network didn’t do a more thorough investigation of what turned out to be forged documents. I’m still reeling over this and the glaring fact that no one has been canned over it.
Let’s take a trip back to what is ancient history to some, the days of bell-bottoms and disaster movies…
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Update: Former U.S. Attorney to investigate Rathergate!
(Hat tip: Power Line)
According to Drudge:
CBS DOC SOURCE SET TO SUE NETWORK FOR LIBEL
Wed Sep 22 2004 00:05:20 ET
Bill Burkett, the man identified yesterday by CBS as the source of the controversial documents used in its September 8 “60 Minutes II” report questioning President Bush’s Air National Guard service, plans to sue the network, the NY SUN reports.
Burkett has had “several meetings with lawyers to determine the best course of action.” The planned lawsuit would center on “defamation of character and libel.”
Mr. Burkett “told me everything about the process” of his dealings with CBS and how he came into possession of the documents at the heart of the controversy, a lawyer close to Burkett said.
The lawyer said the CBS News producer, Mary Mapes, promised to protect Mr. Burkett with complete anonymity and CBS was to “expend both time and money authenticating” the memos.
“Bill Burkett went with CBS News on this over ABC News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post because they promised to work the hardest to protect him and authenticate the documents. ,” Mr.Van Os told the Sun. “Bill leveled with [CBS] about his doubts over the papers, and they promised him they would take their time. They spent all of three days, maybe less, on authentication.”
Developing…
And the Kerry campaign is involved. See you back in the Senate in January, Mr. Kerry.
More links… [click to continue…]
John Kerry better get back on the pander-horse double-quick and ride him like a real cowboy. Democrats in Ohio (see Rasmussen) are nervous. They’re warning black voters not to get “Bush-whacked” (so clever, aren’t they?):
If Ohio is a battleground state in this year’s presidential election, these are some of the foot soldiers. Their mission is to maximize black voter turnout on Nov. 2 — a mission that will likely decide the Democrats’ chances of taking Ohio.
“The African-American vote in Ohio is tremendously important,” said Bill Lynch, deputy national campaign manager for the Kerry-John Edwards team. “If we don’t get strong turnout, we don’t win” the state.
This will be particularly true if the race is close.
“He is not going to win on the black vote alone; but the only way Kerry is going to win is if he has good black voter turnout,” said David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C.
The issue is not whether black voters, who have historically voted Democratic, will back Kerry.
In the 2000 election, about 90 percent of black voters cast their ballots for Democratic candidate Al Gore, exit polls showed. And a recent Plain Dealer poll shows Kerry with an equally commanding lead over President Bush among Ohio’s black voters.
“The election for many African-Americans is not between Kerry and Bush, but voting for Kerry or staying at home,” said Meryl Johnson, first vice president of the Cleveland Teachers Union, which has endorsed Kerry.
While 58 percent of Ohio voters cast ballots in 2000, the turnout was lower — 54 percent — among eligible black voters, according to census data. About 500,000 black Ohioans voted in the election; another 100,000 who were registered to vote sat out.
My advice to John Kerry: If you want to bring black voters to the polls, less war talk, more race talk, i.e., Section 8 housing and conservatives-are-racists.
Also see Ohio poll.
I came across an interesting article that apprears to be a variation on this theme. Gregory Moore, author of “It’s Africans, Not African Americans That Are Appreciating College Education”, writes:
With the NBA season being about a month or so away, I thought it was interesting that while searching through the various sports resources at my disposal that I actually came across a story that seems to put more credence into my argument that the young African American kids in this country look at professional sports as a God-given right where as other kids from ethnic backgrounds see the college education as a privilege worth striving for. No more was this ever present than on Friday when I was combing through said resources and came across a story from Sports Business Network entitled, “Young African Men and their NBA dream”…. (my emphasis)
I know I sound like broken record, but some black children’s unrealistic expectations and sense of entitlement toward college (and life in general?) are direct consequences of the current state of our educational system (dismal) and the existence of skin color preferences (immoral). [click to continue…]
Update (6:25 p.m.): “CBS Faces New Charges Over Discredited Bush Report”
Joe Lockhart, Bill Clinton’s former spokesman, poked his hand in the cookie jar once too often. He got stuck. According to USAToday:
CBS arranged for a confidential source to talk with Joe Lockhart, a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, after the source provided the network with the now-disputed documents about President Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard.
Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton, said a female producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents. Lockhart couldn’t recall the producer’s name. But CBS said Monday night that it would examine the role of producer Mary Mapes in passing the name to Lockhart….
The network’s effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS’ handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This “poses a real danger to the potential credibility…of a news organization,” said Aly Colon, a news ethicist at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
Why would CBS need to contact the Kerry campaign? Wouldn’t their efforts to topple George Bush be more likely to succeed if they at least pretended to be non-partisan? This country doesn’t produce smart people the way it used to, I guess.
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