by La Shawn on October 31, 2006
in Liberals
Stop the presses!
Black Democrats in Prince George’s County, Maryland, have endorsed Republican Michael Steele for the U.S. Senate. More from the Washington Times.
My guess is that these black Democrats were a bit upset because the state party chose the lesser known and white Ben Cardin over the better known and black Kweisi Mfume, former head of the NAACP.
One quote was particularly hopeful. Democrat David Harrington, a Prince George’s County council member, said that choosing Steele was “a way to say, ‘Don’t leave Prince George’s out, and don’t leave African Americans out’… There needs to be a diversity of voices in the room.”
Diversity of voices and not just skin color. From the mouth of a Democrat! Refreshing, indeed.
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by La Shawn on October 31, 2006
in Bloggers
Tuesday, November 7: For the latest party/election news, see this post.
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Now that the Los Angeles Times has written it up, I guess I can blog about it now.
CNN invited me to an election night “blog party,” where I’ll live-blog mid-term election coverage with conservative bloggers like Ed Morrissey, Mary Katharine Ham, and liberals like Pam Spaulding, who no doubt considers me a “black fundie.” 
I’m told CNN will interview some of the bloggers. From the article:
CNN is trying to incorporate bloggers directly into its coverage of next week’s midterm elections by inviting them to an “E-lection Nite Blog Party,” an event aimed at corralling some of the top online opinion makers in one place to provide instant reaction as the results come in.
The cable news network plans to host more than two dozen bloggers from across the political spectrum — including sites like RedState and Daily Kos — at a Washington Internet lounge where they can monitor the election returns on a slew of flat-screen televisions. (Each blogger will get his or her own monitor, which can be tuned to any channel.) There will be free wireless access — and plenty of food and beverages, natch.
If you haven’t watched CNN in years, perhaps you’ll tune in Tuesday night to catch me and others live-blogging and hopefully talking about the results.
“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille…”
by La Shawn on October 31, 2006
in Liberals
Last week, New Jersey’s highest court ruled that two men and two women are entitled to the same rights and benefits as a married man and woman. Despite the media hype, the court did not find that homosexuals have the right to marriage as it currently exists in law. (Source – Gross-out warning!) Technicalities aside, the decision is just one more step toward the perversion and mockery of marriage.
Former staffer for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and current Newsday columnist James P. Pinkerton reminds us about what happened the last time liberals nabbed a big “win” in the courts in his latest column.
It doesn’t reflect a Christian’s view of marriage. It’s a states’ rights view, but it’s good enough for me at the moment. In “N.J. gay marriage ruling will hurt Democrats,” he writes:
It must be said here that a solid argument can be made that committed same-sex couples deserve societal recognition. Many societies, across history, have made some sort of allowance for gay and lesbian relationships…So with an appropriate Burkean perspective, conservatives shouldn’t get too riled up if local jurisdictions – such as, say, the City of San Francisco – decide to carve out space for gay and lesbian couples.
But that’s not what happened in New Jersey. In that state of nearly 9 million people, liberal-activist litigators went straight to the courts; they calculated, accurately, that they would get their way with elite judges. The irony of this case is that polls show that most New Jerseyans support civil unions, if not gay marriage. Which is to say, if gay leaders had been willing to work through the small-”d” democratic process, they might well have achieved at least some of their goals.
The whole column is worth reprinting here, but there’s the copyright thing. Before you comment on this post, please read the whole thing.
So-called victories in the courtroom don’t translate to victories on the ground, as Democrats should well know by now. Those with short memories forget that when the issue of homosexual “marriage” was presented to the people — and not judges — the people rejected it outright, without equivocation.
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Tuesday, October 31: This post is closed to commenting. Want to talk God and “gay marriage?” Do so at Democrats: Court Winners, Election Losers.
Saturday, October 28 @ 10:30 a.m. PDT: I attended a breakout session yesterday called “Maximizing Ministry in New Media,” led by pastor, author, and blogger Mark Roberts. He and I almost got sidetracked when I told him I’d read and linked to his article on Christians and Harry Potter, “Hoodwinked by Harry?,” after I mentioned my fantasy fiction blog. I’m waiting for an invitation to a conference for Christians who like fantasy fiction. Sign me up!
Anyway, the wireless wasn’t working in that room, so I couldn’t live-blog. I typed up a summary in Word. I’ll post it, my final thoughts on this year’s GodBlogCon, and photos next week. Thanks for reading LBC. 
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I’m coming to you live from the second annual God Blog Conference in La Mirada, California. You’re having lunch, but I just finished breakfast. Before I blog about the first panel, I wanted to mention something I hope will be discussed today.
By now you’ve heard that a New Jersey court has “opened the door” to “homosexual marriage.” I think this decision and the Mark Foley fiasco, which we now know was instigated by a staffer at the homosexual advocacy group, Human Rights Campaign, will backfire on Democrats. At least, I hope so.
I am a fan of Camille Paglia, a Democrat-voting lesbian, writer, and art professor. Why I’m a fan is a long story, and I’ll tell you about it later. My taste in reading is more eclectic than I reveal on this blog, but that’s another topic for another post. Paglia was interviewed in Salon, and she says this about the Foley scandal:
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I’m headed to California tomorrow to meet up with Christian bloggers at the God Blog Conference to talk about blogging, our love for the Savior, politics, and whatever else we have time to discuss.
Upon my return from last year’s GodBlogCon, I wanted to curl up in a corner and wish the world away. This year, I want to make a triumphant return to the East Coast with lots of good things to share, and no jet lag. 
To make matters worse, we “fall back” to standard time this weekend. Traveling to California won’t be a big deal. It’s the return I dread. I’m in California from Thursday afternoon to Sunday/Monday.
Any advice you can give me — sound medical advice, home remedies, urban legends, anything — will be appreciated.
Update: I’m sure we’ll get around to talking about this mess at the conference. God’s judgment, indeed. I hope the ruling leads to some serious voter backlash. Be careful what you wish for…
Update II (10/26): I have a column deadline today, so between flying and writing, I probably won’t blog about the conference until tomorrow. I’m on two panels, I think. I may live-blog.
by La Shawn on October 25, 2006
in Liberals
Update II: Commenter and blogger Gayle Miller mentions actor and author Joseph C. Phillips, who I agree is better looking than Obama.
I reviewed Phillips’s book, He Talk Like A White Boy, for National Review Online.
FrontPage interviews Phillips.
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I usually avoid blogging about black “golden boy” Democratic politicians like U.S. Senator Barack Obama because I know I’ll be accused of “player hating,” but I can’t let the hype parade pass without comment.
Barack Obama, the “He speaks so well!” up and coming U.S. senator, no doubt has a bright future ahead of him. But why, I’m trying to figure out, are we reading about his presidential aspirations a mere two years into his first term as senator?
I have a few ideas. First, Obama is “articulate.” No big deal, right? Well, for a black person, it seems to be. At least that’s how I perceive it. Back in 2004 when I was still working a day job at a heavily Democrat-voting organization, the word “articulate” was uttered frequently as white co-workers described Obama’s big speech at the Democratic convention. It wasn’t so much what he said, as I discovered when I read the text of his speech, but how he said it.
In “Barack Obama Goes To Boston,” I gave you my impressions of his speech. He’s a liberal who doesn’t like to be called a liberal. His speech contained nothing breathtaking, groundbreaking, or worth the hyperventilating hype that resulted from it.
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Wednesday, October 25: From Conservative Compendium:
“Trying to achieve diversity, which in common usage actually means proportionality, is itself a form of quota regardless of whether the means to achieve that end utilizes quotas. Diversity, as typically used, is actually a misnomer. What is actually desired is uniformity. All jobs/institutions must have a uniform representation of all groups, making all such institutions virtual copies of each other. They would, amongst themselves, lack diversity…[W]e see that many falsely associate workplaces or other institutions with exactly proportional group representations as nondiscriminatory, when the opposite is actually true.”
Also see this Opinion Journal piece: “To avoid charges of ‘racism,’ we disciplined black and white students differently.”
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When I was young and naive, I used to believe in a “colorblind society.” I envisioned a utopia-like world where everyone got along, despite differences in skin color, religion, height, weight, or other “irrelevant” factors.
Having lived in the real world for a few decades now, I realize how silly I was. Human beings can’t ignore differences if we tried. The best we can do is condition ourselves to not allow those differences to divide us too sharply. If we can do that, we’re doing quite well.
Some people misunderstand the conservative position on “colorblindness.” I should say my position on colorblindness, since I can’t speak for conservatives or black people. While humans will always make decisions based on what we perceive, the government should not. What conservatives and other anti-race preference opponents like myself believe is that government policy should be colorblind; that is, the government should not make policy, write laws, or base decisions on a citizen’s race, color, creed, or religion. We are to be judged and treated as individuals, not as members or representatives of a racial or ethnic group.
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Tuesday, October 25: Finally, a blogger gets invited to speak on a panel about the Duke case. Go show KC Johnson your support.
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I’ve done a lot of blogging about the Duke case, but I’ve got nothing on bloggers like KC Johnson, who started a blog dedicated to the case, John in Carolina (fact-checks N.C. newspapers reporting on the case), Lie Stoppers, The Johnsville News, and Crystal Mess. Because I cover a wider variety of political topics, I haven’t gone as in depth as the others.
And they’re on top of things.
Last week there was a panel discussion about the case. Invitees were journalists, and at the time it didn’t occur to me to ask why “Duke bloggers” weren’t invited to join the panel. I’m asking now. I’ve been in touch with Robert Bliwise, editor of Duke Magazine, over the past few weeks. I assume he organized the panel, and I asked him why he didn’t invite bloggers. I’ll post his response if I get one.
As a blogger, I’m biased. As journalists talk about how “unedited” and “unvetted” bloggers are, they often do the same things they accuse us of doing. At least bloggers are open about their biases, whereas journalists hide behind the cover of “objectivity.”
I think left-leaning media were motivated to a greater extent by the man-bites-dog aspect of the “rape” story. I suspect that liberal journalists who wrote slanted stories didn’t really believe the lacrosse players raped the stripper-accuser. But it was good copy.
Like the Rathergate story, this one is moving too fast for me. So I’ll do what I think I’m better at doing: providing round-up coverage and cranking out a column or two about the blog swarm.
Journalist Jon Ham attended the Duke-and-the-media panel and blogged about it.
Unrelated Update (7:00 p.m.): I just got some cool news I can’t blog about yet. (I know it’s not nice to tease, but the girl can’t help it.) I’ll fill you in later. 
***Scroll down for updates — Interesting Bible-reading project with black actors***
Later…Nasty hate e-mail below
Deval Patrick, who probably will become Massachusetts’s first black governor, is a godsend, of sorts, to homosexual “marriage” advocates across the country.
If he’s elected, he will try to repeal a 1913 state law that prohibits out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if the marriage would be illegal in their home state. Sounds like a reasonable restriction to me. How about you?
Well, Patrick and others claim the law was designed to prevent interracial marriage. In my latest Townhall column, I argue, “So what?” The original purpose of the law is in dispute, but whatever its origins, it protects marriage and prevents the state from becoming a “Las Vegas for same-sex marriage.”
Check out what is sure to generate lots of controversy, Deval Patrick: Homosexuals’ Great Black Hope?
But I gladly take the heat because somebody has to stand up for what’s right.
States without express prohibitions against homosexual “marriage” need to write and pass laws against it now. There’s no time to waste.
Related posts:
Update (7:34 a.m.): And the e-mail begins already. Text below the fold (spelling corrected and CAPS removed):
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I was determined to take the whole weekend off from this bloody blog, so I let a Sunday blog swarm pass me by. Time to play catch up.
Background
Back in July, the New York Times decided to run a story on a “secret” government terrorist-fighting program. Through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a Belgium-based cooperative that serves as a clearinghouse for financial transactions, the United States tracks mostly overseas transactions to detect patterns of terrorist financing activities.
The NYT article acknowledged that SWIFT was legal, limited in scope, and successful in capturing terrorists.
The conservative blogosphere flipped out, with Michelle Malkin, LA Times critic Patterico, and others leading the charge. We all wondered why the paper decided to publish a story about a previously classified terrorist-fighting program, especially if it was legal and effective.
In Loose Lips, Sinking Ships, and the Fourth Estate, I listed a brief chronology of events, including links to subsequent articles and criticism. I appealed to the “bloggers as pamphleteers” idea and emphasized the importance of the constitutional protection of a free press. I support NYT’s right to free press and informing the public, but I did not support their decision to expose a classified government program.
It’s as if the NYT doesn’t understand or care that we are fighting a war — with an enemy who lurks in different countries and hides in holes like a rat — whether they believe it is a just war or not. The nature of a war against religious fanatics who live all over the globe, as opposed to a specific country or countries, is such that secret surveillance and covert financial tracking are a must. Lives are at stake — Americans abroad and at home.
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We’re talking about child killing at Hot Air today, which I’m passionately against, so my volume is a bit louder than everyone else’s. Watch your ears and enjoy!
(Pictured: Me, Kirsten Powers, Michelle Malkin, and Mary Katharine Ham)
Related posts:
Update: On the day she’s scheduled to give birth, a woman shot herself in the stomach and killed the baby because she’s “poor.” Adoption, personal responsibility, common sense, and decency obviously are foreign concepts to this numbskull. The judge as good as said, Don’t worry about. No charges, no consequences.
Remember, an unborn baby is human only if you want “it.” Otherwise, slaughter at will! 
Then again, it depends on whether you’re the mother-to-be or a third party. A woman asked her “boyfriend” to help her kill the baby. The baby dies. He’s charged with murder. She’s charged with CHOICE!
Words like loonies, running, and asylum come to mind…
Update II: Happy birthday, Michelle!
Update: In response to critics who question why I blog about race so frequently, I wrote a post titled Race Blogger.
Do You Hate Black People? is also responsive.
Don’t like it? Millions of other bloggers out there…
Later…My post on the battle for “preferred minority” status was reprinted at CNSNEWS.com.
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If you have an SAT score of 1240 and a grade-point average of 3.2, your chances of being admitted to the University of Michigan undergraduate school are 9 out of 10.
If you’re black.
White or Asian? One in 10.
The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) has the goods on the University of Michigan (U-M), just in time for the November 7 election.
On that day, Michigan voters get to decide whether their state government will continue using skin color preferences to hire and admit blacks and hispanics, or use fair and consistent standards for everyone, without regard for the color of their skin, an idea that was the heart and soul of this nation’s so-called Civil Rights struggle.
If passed, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative will put a serious damper on U-M’s skin game.
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I don’t know why he’s there, but a blogger I know went to Iraq. Please stop by and wish him well.
In Out of Acheron, he upload a video of the airplane landing in Jordan and other clips. Here’s his first journal entry. More here.
Iraq? He’s a better man than I. Incidentally, a blog reader, LBC fan, and friend I met earlier this year (remember the “endangered species” guy?) may be going to Iraq.
It is our nature to excuse bad behavior by calling it an addiction or blaming it on an addiction.
That’s not to say the addiction isn’t real. Being physically or psychologically dependent on a thing — food, drugs, alcohol, pornography, people, whatever — is not pleasant.
Before the addiction sets in, it may feel good to overindulge. But as the addiction progresses and deepens, you need more of the substance to feel the same “high.” You find yourself seeking that first high, which will continue to elude you. Nothing else in your life is as important.
Well, that was my experience, anyway.
That’s why I didn’t laugh when I read this article about Internet addiction. Does Internet use work on our brains the same way a substance like alcohol does?
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