Update (9:55 p.m.): Welcome to the blog, first-timers. If you’re as bored as I am with politics, check out my hobby blog, Fantasy Fiction for Christians.
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I used to invite blog-less readers (although bloggers were free to participate) to “live-comment” events. The first such post (first presidential debate) generated 166 comments. The third debate post generated 544 comments. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I watched the thread grow. But the Election Day post holds the record with 623 comments. Those were heady times.
Unless he says something particularly inspiring, the only portion of Bush’s speech I’ll live-blog tonight is illegal immigration. I’ve heard rumors that he won’t even mention it, so this post may not be updated. 
If you plan to watch the State of the Union address tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST and want to comment on it, the thread will be open. I prefer listening to these things on the radio. I’m usually not in the mood to watch Big Teddy and Maxine Waters scowl and politicians preen.
Related: Blacks, Illegal Aliens, and the Preening President
Live-bloggers: Blogs for Bush, Captain Ed, MM, Sister Toldjah (live-commenting but no live-blogging), Arch Radish, California Conservative…
Unrelated Addendum: I made The Nation. I’m “honored.” This pro-life blogger is here to stay, baby!
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In a 58-42 vote, Samuel Alito was confirmed to be the new U.S. Supreme Court justice. Adios, Sandra Dee. From the AP:
All but one of the Senate’s majority Republicans voted for his confirmation, while all but four of the Democrats voted against Alito.
That is the smallest number of senators in the party opposing a president to support a Supreme Court justice in modern history. Chief Justice John Roberts got 22 Democratic votes last year, and Justice Clarence Thomas — who was confirmed in 1991 on a 52-48 vote — got 11 Democratic votes.
Alito watched the final vote from the White House’s Roosevelt Room with his family. He was to be sworn in by Roberts at the Supreme Court in a private ceremony later in the day, in plenty of time for him to appear with President Bush at the State of the Union speech Tuesday evening.
I have no strong feelings about Alito’s confirmation one way or another. But I’m curious about what he allegedly told Senator Diane Feinstein back in November about his “the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion” statement made in 1985:
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I will appear on KFQD in Anchorage, Alaska, to talk about the recent March for Life rally, Planned Parenthood, etc., tomorrow at 7:15 p.m. EST. (See Marching for life and against the “Negro Project”)
On Sunday I’ll appear on KRLA around (?) with blogger and new talk show host Lores Rizkalla of Just A Woman. It will be her first broadcast. [Update: Wait a second...the show is on at midnight Pacific time, so that means I'd appear at 3:00 a.m. Uh...I'll get back to you.]
By the way, I plan to do a big round-up post this week. I haven’t done one of those in awhile. E-mail a link to something interesting, and I may include it in the round-up.
by La Shawn on January 31, 2006
in General
Martin Luther King’s legacy has taken on mythic status. Both Democrats and Republicans claim him as their own, trying to “out-King” each other every year on his birthday.
Then there are the detractors who insist that King’s legacy has been whitewashed, that he was a Communist agitator, plagiarist, and adulterer. Add to that the issue of civil disobedience, and whether it is biblical for Christians to defy government authorities.
Most recently, King’s children got into a spat over what to do with the Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta after their mother became incapacitated.
Lost in all this was their mother, King’s widow, Coretta Scott King. Regardless of his legacy and politics, Coretta seemed to be the ultimate long-suffering widow and mother, raising four children alone after her husband was slain by James Earl Ray or whoever conspiracy theorists think did it. I’m sure she’s had to deal with hucksters of all sorts through the years: people trying to attach themselves to her, using her and King’s name for their own gain.
Coretta died this morning at age 78.
Bloggers: Perspectives in Motion, Sister Toldjah, Cindy Swanson, D.C. Thornton (sporting a brand new template!), The American Mind, Independent Conservative, Independent Christian Voice…
Sources:
by La Shawn on January 30, 2006
in Bloggers
1) Do you or someone you know spend 50 percent or more of your blogging time writing (negatively) about other bloggers?
2) Do you or someone you know begrudge another blogger’s “success”?
3) Are you or someone you know angry, perplexed, stumped — or the adjective of your choice — because certain bloggers seem to get linked frequently by the bigger bloggers, although you believe your posts are much more interesting and well-written?
4) Do you believe it is wrong, impractical, wasteful, comical, useful — or the adjective of your choice — to build a reputation by trying to tear down other bloggers?
Those are loaded questions, but that’s the slant of a project I’m working on. I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you don’t mind “confessing” publicly, you may do so in the comment section. I discourage blogger bashing, but feel free to name names to make your point.
To reply in confidence, e-mail me.
Hopefully Dell will either hire people with easy-to-understand accents or train them to speak with “American” accents for their customer service centers. (Source)
Have you seen the Dell commercial with a white and obviously American customer service guy? False advertising. I heard that Dell business customers (as opposed to us regular “home” customers) get to speak to Americans. Home users just have to suffer, I guess.
Have you ever tried to explain a computer problem or billing issue you barely understand to someone with a thick accent you could barely understand?
It’s brutal.
(AP photo)
No wonder some blacks think we’re the most put-upon group on the planet.
First blacks had to deal with legal race discrimination during Jim Crow. Then we had to take on disparate impact “discrimination.” Now some are running to the EEOC because employers are passing them over for…illegal aliens.
As blacks continue losing jobs to criminals hired by criminals, expect to read about more EEOC lawsuits. The question is will blacks finally organize and come out strongly against illegal immigration, forcing Democrats (who can’t win elections without the “black vote”) to do something about it?
Until a thing negatively affects us, we generally don’t pay much attention to it. To many blacks, Hispanics were just another minority group, united as brothers-in-arms against “white oppression.” Now that employers are skipping over American citizens to hire people who ought to be in a jail cell instead of an employment office, I hope to see all Americans, especially blacks, unite against the tide of foreigners flouting our laws and changing our culture for the worst. That’s a new kind of oppression.
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by La Shawn on January 27, 2006
in General
Update (5:27 p.m.): More trivia. Which Hogwarts house?
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It’s Friday, so let’s have some blog fun. I found this meme at ChristWeb and figured it would be fabulous to give you some trivia about myself in fours:
Four Jobs I’ve Had in My Life:
Cashier at Burger King (fired for not smiling enough)
Flight Attendant
Day Care Worker (some places will hire any warm body)
Legislative Correspondent (wrote letters to constituents for U.S. senator)
Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over, and Have:
JFK
Malcolm X
Gone with the Wind
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder (Come with me and you’ll see a world of pure imagination…)
Four Places I Have Lived:
Long Island, NY
“Small Town,” SC
Philadelphia, PA
Washington, DC
Four TV Shows I Love To Watch:
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Law & Order (original series)
A&E’s Cold Case Files
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Update II (1/27 @ 3:48 p.m.): The bloggers and radio show hosts known as Pundit Review will interview The Smoking Gun’s managing editor Andrew Goldberg this Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. EST on WRKO in Boston. Check it out. By the way, the bloggers finally posted a photo of themselves.
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Admitting when you’re wrong can be very difficult.
Some of you may have been following the story of James Frey, exaggerator extraordinaire and author of A Million Little Pieces. An appearance on Oprah’s show netted him fame and cash. She’d selected his autobiography for her world famous book club, but his book contained more fiction than actual events from his life.
In his memoir, Frey claimed he’d been a drug-addicted bad boy, raising hell and running down cops. He spent months in prison and managed to tame a beast of a man by reading him the classics. While in a drug treatment center, he met and started a relationship with a fellow addict named Lilly, who eventually hung herself, according to Frey. The book depicts Frey as a reckless, dangerous, and overly-macho tough guy who beat the odds and overcame his addiction in a dramatic way.
Frey’s book inspired millions, including the talk show queen, who gushed on national TV about his “life story.” Some doubted Frey’s version of events when it was first published in 2003, but an appearance on Oprah thrust the dubious tome into the national and scrutinizing spotlight.
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Despite cringe-worthy depictions of obsequious slaves, a boisterous and protective mammy, and a “simple-minded darky,” Gone with the Wind (1939) is one of my favorite movies.
No matter how exaggerated and biased, the film is a masterpiece and the story is compelling.
Years ago I encouraged a friend of mine to watch the movie because she’d never seen it. The next day I asked her what she thought. As soon as she saw actress Hattie McDaniel with that rag on her head (which is perhaps the third or fourth scene in the movie), she switched the channel. My friend couldn’t take it.
As many of you know, Hattie McDaniel was the first black actress to win an Oscar. For her role as Scarlett O’Hara’s protector, she received the award as best supporting actress. McDaniel, who died in 1952, will be honored with a postal stamp. From the AP:
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…the homeland insecurity chief. Second, send heavily armed troops to the southern border now!
This is outrageous. Outrageous! I am ill-suited to be “in power” because if I had the arsenal and the might to keep foreigners — so-called hard workers, bums, whatever — from entering this country illegally and Mexican thugs (including Vicente Fox) from terrorizing U.S. citizens and dictating our foreign policy…
Am I the only one angry around here? Let me get myself together before I continue writing.
11:38 p.m.: Let’s see. Mexican thugs dressed in miltary uniforms with guns in a “standoff” with U.S. law enforcement on American soil, and there’s no mention of it on the Department of Homeland Insecurity’s press page, immigration and borders page, or the front page — or what the government plans to do. I see.
Michelle Malkin covered this yesterday, with lots of links. Also see Google news. I’m talking a vacation.
Update: (1/26): Please vist Beyond Borders and Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Michelle Malkin: “Paging the Department of Homeland Security. Hello? Hello?!”
I wasn’t a fan of actor Chris Penn, brother of Sean Penn, but when I read that he died, I immediately thought of the movie I most identified him with: Footloose.
Some of you thirty- and fortysomethings may have gone to see it in 1984. I was in high school, and my best friend and I went to see a new movie with Kevin Bacon, set in a small Texas town that outlawed dancing. Bacon was the new kid from Chicago, out of place, and coming to terms with his parents’ divorce.
Needless to say he shakes up the sleepy, backward town and demands the right to dance, leading his new friends on a town council/bigot-fighting crusade. His best friend was a country boy who liked to fight named Willard, played by Chris Penn (on the right wearing the hat). As Bacon’s character is risking life and limb for a prom, he teaches Willard how to dance. Those are the funniest scenes in the movie because, of course, Kevin Bacon can’t dance either! Like the young and impulsive often do, my friend and I sat through another showing of “Footloose” that day, and my favorite character wasn’t the “star” but the star’s best friend, played by Penn.
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Update (1/26): Alan Henderson: “Kanye West is a coward, and his defenders are hypocrites.”
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The bottom-feeding WB and UPN networks (scraping the bottom of an already debauched network TV line-up) are shutting down. (Source)
What a big loss to the culture that will be.
Don’t have a collective cow, coach potatoes. The rich men with too much time and money on their hands will resurrect some of your favorite shows for a new network called “The CW.” (I guess they think it sounds cool.) Anyway, the rich men with too much time and money on their hands will presumably take the “best” of each soon-to-be defunct network to jumpstart a new one.
Good luck with all that.
You know, I’d really, really like to see a massive boycott of network TV…except CBS on Thursday nights from 9-10:00 p.m. 
And please, please stop e-mailing me about this inexplicably popular and profitable person.
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by La Shawn on January 24, 2006
in General
You know me.
I don’t care how nasty America’s history is. I keep the America-bashing to a bare minimum. In fact, I can’t recall the last time I trashed the country. The people who run it, however, are fair game.
I found a discussion-worthy article called Why Anglos Lead. (The artice is long, but it’s a really interesting read. If you have the time, especially if you plan to participate in the discussion, read the whole thing.) Lawrence Mead highlights a few reasons why he believes the United States is the world’s leader:
- Other rich countries that might show leadership have abdicated
- Wealth and Law
- The Projection of Force
- Confidence in War
- The Deference of Others
Of course, there are other glaring reasons why Anglos, especially the United States, lead the world in practically every way. I’d like to get a good discussion going on this, so I’ll start the ball rolling with this hint: Christianity.
What are some obvious reasons Anglos (America) lead the world? Don’t worry about whether your answers will be offensive.
Update: Brit Clive Davis (whom I met at the Pajamas Media launch) on America-bashing.
Monday, January 22, 2007: Read about March for Life 2007.
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Update II (1/24): It was amazing to be surrounded by so many pro-life people! As expected, I didn’t see many black people in the crowd. But no matter. I care more about their pro-life stance than whether they were represented at a rally.
I’ve never felt more like a “minority” than I did yesterday walking through the crowd. Some people did double-takes when they saw me, and as far as I know I didn’t have anything hanging out of my nose. I pulled their focus because, as I said, there weren’t many blacks there. I’m sure they wanted to ask me why, as if I’d know.
Catholics turned out in great numbers, though it may only have seemed so because they came in large groups and carried large signs indicating who they were and which church they were from. Very good-looking and well-mannered young men from Catholic seminaries were all over the place with banners from their schools (And you mention that because…?). There were also lots of young people. No protesters, though. They have their own rally. Besides, they would’ve been overwhelmed by the pro-life crowd.
I’ve been invited to speak at a local pro-life conference, and I may accept. I need to become more involved with the pro-life movement, especially since it looks like we’ll finally have the right balance on the Supreme Court.
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