Was “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” better or worse than you expected? Share your movie reviews.
From the monthly archives:
July 2007
6:49 a.m. PST: Returned from Ward Connerly’s intense two-day conference yesterday. Had a wonderful time discussing ideas with like-minded people. I met folks like John Rosenberg and Jennifer Gratz of Gratz v. Bollinger.
Discussions at the conference are not bloggable, but I can tell you this: I hope to return next year.
I met Ward last year and was thrilled to be invited. Bad news for La Shawn haters and lowered-standards-for-blacks proponents: I plan to become more involved in the fight to end race preferences in government hiring and admissions than simply writing about it, nasty-grams notwithstanding. If you can’t stand me now, I suggest you never again click on www.lashawnbarber.com or read my columns.
You’ll live longer.
7/9/07: My latest Townhall column is a modified version of my Washington Examiner column. I added information about Georgia’s new anti-illegal immigration laws.
Check out States Fighting Back on Illegal Immigration.
7/7/07: Potter fan profiling…
————————————————
Weird post title, eh?
It’s been a slow blogging year for me, and that’s because my offline life is much more interesting right now. I admire bloggers who have full offline lives yet blog prodigiously. Whenever I try to balance the two spheres, it seems like one suffers. I can’t do both well, so I have to choose which one to focus on.
Anyway, I’m off to California for a two-week “working vacation” to visit my youngest sister (so long, DC!). I’m also working on a couple of offline writing projects I hope to have published (fingers crossed!), so expect sporadic posting at LBC.
While on the left coast, I’m attending a two-day conference of conservative writers and thinkers, hosted by Ward Connerly, the man behind state anti-race preferences campaigns. Connerly invited me to attend the conference he’s organized for the past seven years. We’ll discuss topics like race preferences, the Super Tuesday campaign, the importance of colorblind government policy, illegal “immigration,” etc. My presentation will center around the black-hispanic preferred minority status battle.
Connerly has taken a lot of heat for making the simple argument that regardless of whether humans will ever be colorblind (an impossibility, in my opinion), government policy must be. You may recall that he responded to commenters who called him a hypocrite. Years ago, a California newspaper erroneously reported that Connerly, while fighting against preferences, benefited from preferences as a “minority” business owner. The charges are false, but Connerly’s detractors continue to quote from the article. Read my review of his autobiography.
I’ll write up a report about the conference next week.
Consider this thread wide open. Discuss whatever’s on your mind. No topic is taboo. Suggested subjects:
- Racial discrimination tied to breast cancer risk — More causation/correlation confusion.
- Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature — #8: A man’s so-called midlife crisis has to do with his wife’s age, not his age. Her “imminent menopause and end of her reproductive career” prompts him to try to attract younger, fertile women by driving shiny red sports cars.
- Men have become too whiny and apologetic. I can’t stand it when a man tells the truth, but then apologizes when the media and interest groups bear down on him. Isaiah Washington, former star of “Grey’s Anatomy,” called a co-worker a “faggot.” He bowed, scraped, and apologized, agreeing to attend counseling and meet with homosexual groups. Washington thought all was well. But they fired him anyway. Next time, either keep your mouth shut or stand your ground.
Conservative and Christian columnist Cal Thomas told the truth about Muslims, and various groups “demanded” an apology. His response (audio): “I’m Going to Keep Pointing It Out Until They Blow Me Up…”
I’m waiting for the day some group “demands” that I apologize for something I’ve said or written. I can’t wait. I’ve already got my speech prepared.
Gotta go. Thanks for reading LBC. 
And keep checking this blog for Harry Potter book news and a profile of a certain fan.
{ 41 comments }
Last month, President George W. Bush’s amnesty-for-illegal-aliens bill died a deserved death in the U.S. Senate.
Had the bill become law, it would have paved the way for millions of illegal immigrants — lawbreakers — to become U.S. citizens, jumping ahead of those who’ve spent years legally waiting their turn.
Some say the bill was defeated because angry and concerned citizens called and faxed their senators’ offices, urging them to vote against amnesty. Others, like The Wall Street Journal, credit conservative bloggers with “playing a central role†in helping defeat the bill by “endlessly picking through the evolving immigration legislation†and educating voters.
That’s all very ego-gratifying for us conservative bloggers, but there still is much work ahead. Now that amnesty is dead, state and local governments must aggressively fight illegal immigration and do what the federal government so far has been reluctant to do: focus on individuals and businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
Read the rest of my latest Washington Examiner column.
Report employers that hire illegal aliens to Immigration and Customs Enforcement at 1-866-DHS-2ICE (ReportIllegals.com can do it for you) and embarrass them by sending their info to WeHireAliens.com, preferably with photos.
Update: Michelle’s blogging Arizona. As I mentioned in my column, Democratic governor Janet Napolitano just signed into law the nation’s “toughest” sanctions against cheapskates who hire illegal aliens.
Update II: Keep turning up the heat.
…it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
The anticipation for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows builds!
Harry Potter fans will understand all things on July 21, 2007. I became a fan of the books in the summer of 2005, after the much-anticipated Book 6 was released. This is my first fan-frenzy experience. Some may think it’s silly, but I’ll tell you this: It provides a much-needed respite from global Muslim terrorism, King George’s open borders-loving antics, racial strife, and political non-scandals.
And I’m so glad I’ve never read or heard about any “African Americans for Harry Potter” fan clubs. The HP fandom is as close to color blind as we fallen human beings will ever get.
Serious question for Christians who avoid Harry Potter because of the magic depicted in the books:
Do you also avoid reading books and watching TV shows and movies that contain fornication and adultery, and depict lying and thievery and murder, all of which are condemned in the Bible?
That’s a trick question, by the way. Answer it over here.
Can I get a witness? Can I get an Amen?
According to WorldNetDaily, PBS’s Tavis Smiley said that he didn’t issue a “no applause†rule for the recent Democratic presidential debate at Howard University because “black people are an emotional people. I know it wouldn’t have worked.â€
WND is trying to stir up controversy, no doubt, but I doubt Smiley’s remark would offend the average black person. Why not? Because it’s probably true. Actually, I think blacks simply are less restrained emotionally and feel “no shame” showing emotions.
There was a lot of clapping and verbal reactions among the mostly black audience of VIPs at the debate. In fact, there was clapping and verbal reactions among the black bloggers, including me (there was no “no applause” rule in the media room). I thought nothing of it at the time, but afterward, a white blogger said the debate “seemed like church†or something to that effect.
I thought about it for a few seconds and told him he was right. A black liberal blogger in the group agreed with me, and she and I also agreed that even if the audience had been comprised of black conservatives and black Republicans, it still would have “seemed like church.â€
It’s part of the “call and response†tradition of the black church and certain black music styles (although not every black person or black church does it). I went to a relatively conservative black church, with no whooping, hollering, or shouting, but when I’m listening to a particularly inspirational speaker in or outside church, I have to suppress the urge to verbally respond even in a pin-drop quiet room. Responding just seems natural to me. Is it some cultural genetic trait? Oops! Can’t talk about genetics. Anything but that. 
Also see “The Black Church,†a brief story…
(Photo: Campus Echo)
Addendum: You have to clarify everything around here. I’m not saying that blacks can’t or shouldn’t be expected to control themselves. I was agreeing with Smiley’s “blacks are emotional” statement with a twist: that blacks tend to be less restrained in showing emotions. Nothing more, nothing less. Blacks should not be held to lesser or lower standards.
***Scroll down for clarification***
Last week the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that schools in Jefferson County, Kentucky, and Seattle, Washington, could not use race as a tiebreaker when assigning students.
Although Justice Clarence Thomas is vilified by black liberals, he has a keener understanding of “black pride” than they have. Unlike white liberals, Justice Thomas believes black children can excel in predominantly black schools and don’t need to mix with whites in order to learn. So-called progressive blacks have bought into the white supremacist notion that black children must share classrooms with white children to be educated. They completely miss the irony of their own self-loathing, practically begging whites to allow their children to sit alongside theirs.
The true meaning of “black pride” has been lost.
I’m always — always — embarrassed whenever I hear a black person convinced of his own “high” intelligence arguing that the government should force whites to live around blacks, send their kids to school with blacks, and hire underqualified blacks. It’s as though the civil rights, “black pride” movement never happened. People fought and died, bled and cried to dismantle a government system that forced racial segregation. Decades later, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren are fighting and crying to keep in place a government system that forces racial integration because we poor black folks can’t do a thing for ourselves without white folks around.
If blacks like Clarence Thomas and myself were pushing that line of crap, the slurs “Uncle Tom” and “Aunt Jemima” would be apt. But we’re saying the opposite. Black liberals are the ones begging white people to “accept” them. At the same time, black liberals are the ones raising their kids to believe this country, the greatest on the planet, is a cesspool of white racism and that white people are bound and determined to keep them down. Why the heck would you want to be around people you think are trying to keep you down?
Contrary to what some of you have been taught, Americans have a right to live wherever they want and avoid whomever they want for whatever reason. Private businesses have a right to hire whomever they want and avoid hiring whomever they want for whatever reason. It’s shocking to some people and might hurt black people’s feelings, but it is not illegal to want to be with certain people based on race or to avoid certain people based on race. We have the freedom to self-segregate, and the government does not have the authority, constitutionally or otherwise, to order people around to achieve some arbitrary racial balance (or imbalance, as was the case with Jim Crow). It didn’t have that authority in the days of Plessy v. Ferguson, and it doesn’t have that authority now.
For a lesson in true — as opposed to phony — black pride, read Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District et al (PDF).
For a standard recitation of white liberal paternalism, read Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent. “The White Man’s Burden,” indeed.
Update: In case anyone has trouble spotting the issue in this post, allow me to be explicit: I’m not demeaning the idea of “black pride” in itself; I’m demeaning black liberals’ idea of black pride. Those are two very different things.
Monday, July 2 @ 9:00 a.m.: Check out my latest Townhall column, Black Pride, White Paternalism.
