So implied Congressman Alcee Hastings, an impeached former federal judge, to an audience of Jewish liberals yesterday.
According to CNN (also see this link), his exact words were (bad grammar included) “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks…If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention.”
I’m no Sarah Palin apologist, but what Hastings’s said was race-baitingly foul, obviously. I wonder if anyone called him on it or at the very least, asked what the heck he meant. If I’d been there…It’s a strange thing to say. People who exercise their right to carry a gun and who hunt animals are racist?
Imagine a white Republican saying something similar about a black liberal candidate. Mainstream media would cover it morning, noon, and night. There’d be widespread calls for an apology and/or resignation. But they’ll treat what Hastings said as a curious news item, forgotten by day’s end.
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by La Shawn on August 26, 2008
in Lunacy
***Scroll down for updates***
Have you heard about this? In a 59-page report titled, A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy in the U.S. (PDF), the left-leaning Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies tries to make the case that global warming disproportionately impacts black people.
What they ought to say is that climate changes disproportionately impact poor people of all colors, but focusing on blacks, who are more likely to be poor than whites, will generate more attention, not to mention indignation.
I grabbed the bait, and now I’m stuck on the hook. Help!
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Update II (6/4): This just in: “California’s highest court has refused to stay until after the November election its decision legalizing same-sex marriage in the state…Conservative religious and legal groups had asked the California Supreme Court to stop its order from becoming effective until voters have the chance to weigh in on the issue…An initiative that would amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage has qualified for the ballot. Its passage would overrule the court’s decision.” (Source)
Update (6/3 @ 11:35 a.m.): I knew that as a result of this court decision, concerned Californians were trying to get an initiative on the November ballot that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. One of those 1,120,801 signatures belongs to my sister. Way to go, S! I am pleased to report that the initiative will appear on the November ballot. Tip of the beach hat to Randy Thomas.
But Californians already spoke on this issue. In the case I blogged about below, the California Supreme Court overturned Proposition 22, passed in 2000 by 61.4 percent of voters. The people speak, and the court overturns. So the voters will speak again on this issue in November. Make no mistake: this is a war, folks. Round and round and round it goes.
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by La Shawn on March 4, 2008
in Lunacy
Last week, I read a New York Times review of a memoir titled, Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival, the story of how a “part white, part Native American girl” survived as a foster child in a black home in gang-ridden South Central Los Angeles.
According to the review, Margaret B. Jones told “in colorful, streetwise argot” of how she got a gun for her 13th birthday, learned how to cook crack, and saw friends killed and sent to prison. Jones made it out of the ‘hood, attending the University of Oregon on a scholarship.
I smelled a rat.
I’m generally suspicious of memoirs anyway (thanks, James Frey), but this one was stretching it. Now, I don’t know much about “gang culture,” but the story just didn’t ring true. Based on the book review, Jones’s tale seemed like warmed-over TV drama. It sounded to me like Jones was a white girl just pretending, living out some weird fantasy and using the “right” gang slang. (Homies? Do people still use that word?)
It turns out my suspicions were warranted. Today it was revealed that Margaret B. Jones, also known as Margaret Seltzer, made up the whole thing. She’s a white woman who grew up in Sherman Oaks with her biological family and graduated from a private Episcopal day school. Seltzer’s sister saw a New York Times story about baby sis and told the publisher she was a liar. From TimesOnline:
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Friday, January 11: Blogger Stacy Harp is having a contest to give away an Archaeological Study Bible. Check it out.
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I don’t know how to tag this post. Lunacy? Comedy? Faith? Judiciary? A group of Christian parents in South Iron School District near St. Louis, Missouri, sued to stop the Gideons from distributing Bibles in classrooms. Why would Christians want to get in bed with the ACLU? Yuck.
According to an ACLU lawyer, the parents “believe religious beliefs should be taught in the home, not school.”
Once upon a homogenous time in America, that statement would have been utter nonsense. In a town where everyone was “Christian,” whether or not they actually were saved or even attended church, Christianity was more than a faith. It was a way of life. (On a grander scale, it’s the foundation of Western Civilization.) While parents understood it was their job to raise their children in the faith and teach them good morals and values, these morals and values were reiterated in the classroom.
Imagine this scenario: a child is boasting in class about his A+ paper and making fun of a classmate who received a C+, and the teacher gently reminds him of the pastor’s sermon on humility the previous Sunday. I’m sure this has happened countless times in various ways in the history of public schools in small towns across America. I should know. I grew up in one of those towns.
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Enough Is Enough!
If I hear about one more state assembly issuing an apology for slavery, I just might throw up all over my blue and white striped lounging pants and cool blue hoodie I bought myself for Christmas.
Long-time readers are keenly aware of what I think about so-called slavery apologies.
An apology for slavery would make sense under this scenario, and under no other: former slavemasters and those complicit in the government at the time apologizing directly to the former slaves for keeping them in bondage.
Other than that, keep your stinkin’ apology and get on with real business. Here’s what you can apologize for, Mr. Government: for taxing the heck out of me, followed up with the concrete action of lowering my taxes and allowing me to keep more of the money I earn.
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Update: Hmmm…A federal investigation was warranted when they thought white firefighters hung the noose and wrote the note. Does “hate crime hoax” fall under federal jurisdiction? Will Donald Maynard be brought up on federal charges? Poor, victimized, put-upon, stressed out black man. Probably not.
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This is sad.
Turns out that a black firefighter in Baltimore who said he found a noose and “threatening note” in the fire station last month planted both himself. (Source)
Why did he do it? Let’s speculate.
If you read this blog regularly, you may know that fire departments have been pressured to “revamp” employment tests because too many blacks and hispanics were failing them. Anyone with half a brain knows that “revamp” is a euphemism for “dumbed down.” For whatever reason, blacks as a group don’t perform as well as whites on tests that measure general intelligence (designated as g).
In order to narrow the test gap, the test’s g-load is reduced. The result? More blacks pass the test. I suspect that Donald Maynard, who admitted writing the threatening note (typo and all), was bitter about his own subpar job performance (which I inferred from the story) as a firefighter-paramedic apprentice. (Additionally, the city’s inspector general uncovered a cheating scandal. Five black firefighters cheated on a promotions exam. As expected, they cried, “Racism!” when they got caught.)
In a misguided effort to mask his incompetence and blow off steam about perceived racism and a sense of his own inferiority, Maynard planted the noose and note. He knew exactly what the reaction would be: a national outcry, followed by unrighteous indignation, preening, and prancing by various racial grievance groups, a federal investigation, and sympathy for himself and black co-workers.
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by La Shawn on November 28, 2007
in Lunacy
Friday, November 30: The play will go on. Gary Hines will have to find a different idiotic cause. Will somebody give that man a real job? Or a hobby?
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6:47 a.m. PT: Provocative title, eh? Keep reading.
When I was a teen, my grandmother used to watch “Murder, She Wrote.” I thought the hour-long mystery drama was exceedingly boring. Years later, after the show went into syndication, I watched a few episodes to see if the show lived up to its 80s hype. Indeed. I was hooked. I’ve probably seen every episode from all 12 seasons.
I’d heard the main character, a teacher-turned-mystery-novelist named Jessica Fletcher, was modeled after British mystery author Agatha Christie, who wrote such books as The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (my favorite), Murder on the Orient Express, and Death on the Nile. I don’t know whether it’s true, but I started reading Christie’s novels. I was hooked.
(See Agatha Christie’s Official Site)
I especially enjoyed the novel And Then There Were None. It was originally published in 1939 under the title Ten Little Niggers, which came from a nursery rhyme of the same name. The title eventually was changed to Ten Little Indians, then to And Then There Were None.
By now you’ve probably heard the latest NAACP uproar. With no important work left to do, a local NAACP branch president in Ohio pitched a fit complaining about an upcoming high school performance of a play based on the book.
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by La Shawn on October 16, 2007
in Lunacy
The Nanny State rolls on. And a Republican signed the bill.
I was exposed to my father’s cigarette smoke the whole time I lived in his house and rode in his car. It didn’t kill me, obviously, and I didn’t develop second-hand smoke-related health problems. I hate cigarette smoke, but I have neither the desire nor the inclination to tell people what to do in their own homes and cars.
Speaking of father, I’m visiting family down south, one of my favorite places on the planet. Music-filled weekend begins…now. You know what I found out? Lightning does strike twice in the same place. 
Rest easy, everybody.
Update (10/12): In a surreal moment last night, I was listening to my mother (a sort of physician’s assistant working for a group of surgeons and up to her elbows in blood all day) and Isaac Hanson discussing his recent surgery to remove a blood clot and the medication he’s taking. I bribed her into coming to the Charlotte show with me. I’ve attended two concerts for “The Walk Tour” so far (one was “work”), and I may leave it at that. I’m no groupie. Then again, it’s hard not to go when someone puts you on the guest list and you get to meet privately with the band. I don’t have the willpower to turn that down. 
But fun, I do have.
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Lawyer and blogger Debbie Schlussel says that potential jurors for an upcoming terrorism trial were asked whether they read her blog! When I first saw that, I had to read it again. And again. Can you believe it?
The Department of Justice (DOJ), prosecuting a former DOJ lawyer, apparently believes that people who read Debbie’s blog won’t make fair and impartial jurors.
OK, so Debbie’s blog is blatantly and gloriously biased — pro-America, anti-Islamic terrorism, highly critical of DOJ and “ICE Princess” Julie L. Myers. Why not ask potential jurors if they read left-leaning publications like the New York Times? Or Mother Jones magazine? Or The Nation? Why doesn’t DOJ ask potential jurors whether they read certain liberal and/or anti-America blogs? Why single out Debbie Schlussel? I haven’t seen the questionnaire, but I’d bet that no such blog appears on it.
I’m having a hard time grasping the concept.
(Pictured: generic jury questionnaire)
Monday, October 1: Here’s another from the smart and brave Heather Mac Donald, responding to this op-ed by Orlando Patterson. An excerpt (emphasis added):
“Patterson’s discussion of black crime rates and family breakdown is anti-climactic. But just to make sure that his standing with liberal elites is unassailable, at the end of his piece, Patterson lets fly a few swipes at conservatives. He blames the black incarceration rate on, inter alia, the ‘hypocritical refusal of conservative politicians to put their money where their mouths are on family values.’ This charge, like so much else, is made up out of whole cloth. The only politicians and policy makers who have tried to programmatically strengthen family values are conservatives; the marriage movement, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector, seeks to channel a portion of federal welfare dollars into marriage counseling for the poor. If any liberal politicians have gotten behind this idea, they are keeping quiet about it. And Patterson’s call for ‘greatly expand[ed] social services for infants and children’ –as if the last 40 years of poverty policy haven’t proven the futility of such money sinkholes — is a pathetic diversion from the only effective social service for children: two married parents.”
Saturday, September 29: I try not to blog on weekends, but I wanted you to see an op-ed by Carol Swain on Jena Six. She writes:
“Black crime is a serious problem that stereotypes all black youth. And it must be dealt with by a united black community that stands up and says enough is enough. Unfortunately, too many of our media-appointed leaders have failed to vigorously condemn the attack of the six against the one. This is unfortunate.”
Unrelated Note (9/28 @ 12:04 p.m.): Catch me on Bill O’Reilly’s radio show today around…now.
If you want to know what O’Reilly said about race relations in proper context (his conversation with Juan Williams), listen to his “controversial” comments in full (audio file – thanks IC!).
Later…For O’Reilly radio listeners looking for the CNN segment, here it is.
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Now see, this is why I have problems with women who have newborns and go back to work.
I’ve got the inside scoop. When some people say they want “equal treatment,” they’re not being truthful. Take it from a “double minority.” I know what I’m talking about. What they want is accommodation and special treatment. Like this woman.
She’s taking a medical licensing exam, which allows a total of 45 minutes for breaks. This chick, nursing her four-month-old, is suing the National Board of Medical Examiners for extra time to feed the kid and pump milk. This woman has already received special treatment. She’s allowed to take the test over two days, while everybody else gets only one day. Now she wants to expand break time.
*Sigh* Silly girls wearing stethoscopes.
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The fools among us…
A three-judge panel of an appeals court in Kansas just held that an illegal alien’s “ongoing presence in the United States in and of itself is not a crime” unless the illegal alien reentered the country after a previous deportation. (Source)
Can you believe it? Entering the U.S. in violation of the law is illegal. Being in the U.S. in violation of the law may not be illegal. How and under what condition could that ever make sense? Isn’t it common sense that an illegal alien, by virtue of breaking the law, is a criminal? That’s why he’s called an illegal alien. His mere presence inside these borders makes him an outlaw.
But I’m jumping the border…I mean, the gun. The facts:
Some drug-dealing moron named Nicholas Martinez had his kid deliver drugs to an undercover cop (rotten luck!). He was arrested and charged with the sale of cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, endangering a child, theft, and unlawful possession of an identification card. Under a plea agreement, he pled to possession and endangering a child.
Incredibly, the district court was going to give him probation — as was warranted under the sentencing guidelines — instead of throwing his sorry butt in jail. But there was a problem. The judge said (emphasis added):
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