In 1977, 44-year-old movie director Roman Polanski pled guilty to raping a drunk and drugged 13-year-old girl. After plea-bargaining the drug/rape/sodomy charges down to unlawful sexual conduct with a child under 14 and serving 42 days for the evaluation period, Polanski fled to England, then France, to avoid extradition. He’d been on the run ever since. Until September 26. Polanski was arrested in Switzerland.

Anne Applebaum, Washington Post columnist, defended the child rapist, writing that he “can be blamed, it is true, for his original, panicky decision to flee. But for this decision I see mitigating circumstances, not least an understandable fear of irrational punishment. Polanski’s mother died in Auschwitz. His father survived Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto, and later emigrated from communist Poland. His pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969 by the followers of Charles Manson, though for a time Polanski himself was a suspect.”

Got it? That Polanski and his family were in concentration camps and his wife was murdered are “mitigating circumstances” to his avoiding serving time for drugging and violating an intoxicated child. This was a column Applebaum should have written just to get it off her chest, then deleted. I’ve done the same many times myself.

Blogger Patterico found out that Applebaum’s husband, Radoslaw Sikorski, is a Polish politician who’s lobbying for the dismissal of Polanski’s case, and Applebaum failed to disclose this fact.

Uncovering this kind of thing is one of the reasons people blog. Back in the day, you had to find undisclosed conflicts of interest going through hard-copy documents (if you lacked personal knowledge), then calling the newspaper and/or sending a letter to the editor. Nowadays, a few minutes on Google and a blog will do.

Addendum: In a child rapist’s defense, Applebaum said it’s possible Polanski didn’t know the victim’s real age. Not likely, since he had to obtain the mother’s permission for the so-called photo shoot. Forgot to mention that part, and was reminded reading Hot Air.

Check out Polanski’s grand jury testimony.

More videos to come? Check out Big Government.

***

This story should have been on the front page above the fold, not on page 14. But I suppose one should be “grateful” the Gray Lady covered it at all. Need I say, if this were a conservative scandal…

An excerpt (emphasis added):

“For months during last year’s presidential race, conservatives sought to tar the Obama campaign with accusations of voter fraud and other transgressions by the national community organizing group Acorn, which had done some work for the campaign.

“But it took amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and a pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to Acorn offices, to send government officials scrambling in recent days to sever ties with the organization.
…
“On one of the videos, an unidentified Acorn employee in Washington, told that the pair were engaging in prostitution, explained how to disguise their activities in dealing with bankers and the government. “You don’t put down ‘I’m a prostitute’ or ‘I’m a lady of the night, and this is where I’m getting my income,’” the Acorn worker said.

“At the Baltimore office, a helpful worker suggested describing the prostitute on a loan application as a “freelance performing artist” and said she and the pimp might want to claim some of the young Salvadoran prostitutes as dependents and collect the child tax credit for them.”

Watch Part I of the undercover sting in the DC Office below. Watch the rest at Big Government.

Related post: ACORN’s Intelligence Deficiency

Contrast this with the murder of the pro-life Jim Pouillon, gunned down last Friday in front of a school.

As of September 15, 8:39 a.m., four days after the fact, Planned Parenthood has not issued a statement. The abortion mill’s still torn up over the death of Ted Kennedy.

Two days after the fact, Obama had something to say about the murder (see LifeNews), but there’s no official White House statement, as was the case with George Tiller.

You can bet your life the Attorney General’s office won’t release a statement. It still hasn’t condemned the murder and injury of military recruiters on duty, which happened shortly after Tiller’s death.

The stunning lack of media coverage of Jim Pouillon’s murder, given the blanket coverage of Tiller’s, is, well, stunning. Then again, the “pro-choice” think Tiller was a brave and courageous hero, what with helping those women out with getting rid of unwanted infants, and all. Pro-lifers like Pouillon are just right-wing, fundamentalist kooks, what with trying to protect unborn life, and all.

I think my point is made. Is further editorializing really necessary? If so, see A Tale of Two Murders.

Don’t hate the messenger; hate the media bias that sees one group as dumb special children and the other as the embodiment of evil itself. No matter what color you are, you’re willfully deaf and blind if you claim to neither hear it nor see it:

Watch the video below and guess the race of the man carry a semiautomatic rifle and a pistol at a demonstration against Obama’s socialized medicine bill:

Some of you are pretty smart, so you probably guessed the man was black, considering the camera didn’t show his face. If that was your guess, you’re right. If you guessed white, you’re wrong.

You already know what I think about MSNBC’s selective cropping. Showing a black man carrying all that firepower wouldn’t have played into the “white hate groups carrying guns at protests because the president is black” narrative.

They obscure the facts to make a disingenuous point. Shameful. Not in the sense of baby killing or animal torture, but a shame nonetheless. Human nature at its most predictable.

Such blatant bias leads me to make all kind of assumptions. Here’s one: there is something about being white that certain white people don’t like.

Food for thought.

***
Interesting observation:

Within hours of the murder of George Tiller, murderer of babies, pro-life organizations, Christian groups, bloggers, liberal and conservative, feminist organizations, and your Aunt Fanny condemned Tiller’s murder. The White House posted a press release the same day.

Yesterday, a military recruiter was gunned down by a Muslim convert, and I’ve not seen or heard anything remotely comparable to the outpouring of media attention and sympathy Tiller’s murder received. As of this morning, 8:36 a.m. PT, a day after the military recruiter’s murder, the White House has issued no statement. I certainly don’t expect the president to issue statements every time someone is killed, but…

(Detractors who called my Tiller post “gloating,” “twisted,” and “hateful” did so because I reminded readers that he killed infants for a living and because I didn’t publicly condemn Tiller’s murder. Unnecessary, as I condemn all acts of murder, especially murder of the unborn. I have no desire to appease anyone, especially people who think women have a right to slaughter babies in the womb. Take note that I haven’t publicly condemned the recruiter’s murder, either. Consequently, I’ll patiently await follow-up posts from liberal/pro-death bloggers declaring this post to be “gloating,” “twisted,” and “hateful” as well.)

Are the media to blame for failing to cover whatever official statements of condemnation exist, or are there no such condemnations to be found?

Just an observation.

Yesterday I twittered about a Sacramento Bee editorial, in which the paper unleased a rant against Californians for daring to vote against tax hikes (which I voted against). I wrote, “Highly snarky and condescending SacBee editorial about us stupid CA voters rejecting higher taxes…”

Lots of people railed against the editorial, including Rush Limbaugh. Apparently unwilling to stand by what it believes, the SacBee removed the editorial. Fortunately, a blogger cut and pasted the whole thing on his blog. It begins:

Good morning, California voters. Do you feel better, now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?

You wanted to show the state’s politicians just how mad you are at them. And you did. Boy, did you ever.

Proposition 1A with its taxes and its spending limit? Too much of one and not enough of the other, you said (or was it the other way around), and voted it down. Never mind that the taxes go into effect anyway. You showed ‘em.

And it gets worse as it goes along. As I said, snarky and condescending. (Incidentally, within minutes of my Twitter posting, the SacBee started following me on Twitter.)

Liberal Brainwash

A fellow twitterer replied to the message, saying something sarcastic about my not caring if my state goes bankrupt. Such thinking is typical of liberals I know, and the brain-washing goes deep. This person apparently doesn’t realize that raising taxes is not the only way to avoid bankruptcy. The state can, among other things, reduce government programs or cut them altogether.

In my mind, the person’s programmed response conjured up an image of a disembodied brain with shackles around it. Liberal politicians have convinced otherwise rational people that taxing citizens to death is the only way to go. And every election cycle, Democrats get elected on the promise that they’ll raise taxes. Warped, counterintuitive thinking, but there you go. Sad, really.

LiarsRUs

Anyway, back to the SacBee. After a flood of negative comments about the negative editorial, the SacBee published a new one aimed at politicians instead of voters. An excerpt:

Good morning, members of the California Legislature. Good morning, Governor.

Feeling bruised and abused this morning? Well, you can’t say you didn’t see it coming. The polls have been saying for weeks that voters were going to do just what they did on Tuesday: Conclusively reject your slate on the ballot, Propositions 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E.

Today, on the morning after voters kicked around your best effort at fixing the state budget as if it were a deflated soccer ball, you face a decision.

You can blame the voters for reacting with uninformed and misplaced anger.

Amazing. It’s a complete turnaround. What gives? Here’s where the lies come it:

Many of the comments below refer to an article that was posted in error. That article was a draft prepared for internal discussion among members of The Bee’s editorial board. Such discussions are a routine part of our work, and frequently lead to editorials that are considerably different from writers’ first drafts.

Blatant lies. The SacBee published the first time the editorial it intended. It wasn’t an error. The paper backtracked after readers criticized the disrespectful screed, then published a new editorial to cover its butt.

But the damage has been done. That most mainstream newspapers are run by people who vote for tax-raising Democrats is not a surprise. That the SacBee really expects those same voters to believe the first editorial was a mere draft not meant for public consumption is not credible. In any case, we know what the paper thinks of people who vote to keep more of the money they earn.

Since the SacBee has so little regard for the people who keep its presses rolling, the people should make their displeasure known by canceling subscriptions and asking advertisers to halt the gravy train.

(More at Michelle Malkin and Patterico)

The article is biased in favor of abortion and against Lila Rose’s tactics, but I’m not hating on the Times. I’m surprised and quite pleased the mainstream newspaper wrote about the cover-ups at all. Hey, be grateful for small things. The more people who’re aware of Planned Parenthood’s stupendously hare-brained activity, the better.

The biased term “antiabortion” is used throughout the article. Obviously, the author believes abortion is okay. Otherwise, why not use “pro-life”? Because it shines a bright, revealing light on what abortion is: the death of a fetus. And pro-deathers prefer not to think of a fetus as a living human worthy of life.

Did you catch my bias? I call “pro-choice” people “pro-deathers.” I wear my bias on my sleeve and in my heart. I am neither impressed by sentiments nor persuaded by arguments that women should retain the right to kill their babies on demand. For whatever reason.

I am biased in favor of unborn life, not allowing women to snuff out that life because they don’t want “it.” Most mainstream media types are leftists who support atrocities like abortion, and it shows in how they choose to frame a story. I used to rant and rave about it. But I do the same thing. It’s human nature. Why fight it? I’m willing to give readers credit for being smarter than reporters (and freelance writers) think they are.

Takeaway for today: Embrace your biases!

And follow Live Action on Twitter.

I “tweet” more than I blog these days, so follow me for links and updates throughout the day.

As a conservative and, let’s face it, a black conservative at that, I know there’s a fairly large gulf between my views and those of the reporters, producers, and most of the audience. I don’t trust those news organizations to be fair and accurately portray what I say.

Actor and conservative columnist Joseph C. Phillips, whom I consider a friend, appeared on CNN’s “Black in America,” a show (series?) I didn’t see because I don’t watch TV. (Remind me to share my “off TV” story sometime.) I can’t comment on the show’s content, but I believe Joseph when he says CNN gave his liberal counterpart much more time to make his point, while giving Joseph a mere sound bite that put him in a less than favorable light.

I understand how the process works. You can talk to a reporter for an hour, but you’re lucky if the story includes one sentence from the conversation or more than a few seconds of your comment.

Fortunately, CNN gave Joseph a forum to expand on his point about racial disparities in sentencing. From “Black Americans should be masters of our fate” (emphasis added):

“I have little sympathy for men and women who prey on the innocent hardworking members of the community. I am particularly critical of men who are guilty of criminal behavior, as this runs counter to what I see as one of the primary duties of men: to be guardians of the home and of the community, not parasites on that community. I am, however, uncertain that society gains very much by sentencing thousands of young black men to prison for nonviolent drug offenses. The sentences introduce them to a system from which it is difficult to extricate themselves and begins the downward path to joblessness, absentee fatherhood and more criminal behavior — in short, creating more of the very behavior we are trying to discourage.

“The disparity in the guidelines’ impact does not in my mind prove systemic racism. I would, however, argue that it does not represent the best the American justice system has to offer and in fact undermines faith in that very system, especially among black folk.”

Agree or disagree?

If you watched “Black in America,” tell me this: Was it more of the same “Jim Crow is returning!” hysteria or something reasonable and balanced?

(And read my review of Joseph’s book, He Talk Like A White Boy.)

Update: It appears that “Black in America” is available (legally?) on YouTube. I don’t think I’ll watch it. Not interested.

Race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race. Are you as tired of talking, hearing, and reading about it as I am?

This post is about race. Sorry.

Mainstream media are obsessed with it. Once our future biracial president moves into the White House, they’ll be even more obsessed. It’s going to get sickeningly worse.

And liberals. Don’t get me started on them. Skin color diversity just for the sake of skin color diversity is what many care about it, not diverse thoughts, ideas, perspectives, or even the person covered by the skin. No grand theories about why this is so. I just have firsthand knowledge to testify that it’s true.

Race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race , race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race. No matter how hard I try, I can’t avoid the topic. Even when I want to avoid it, I find myself mentioning it. For instance, I’m not a huge fan of country music, but I started listening to Rissi Palmer’s brand of country because: 1) I like the sound; and 2) I like that she’s a black woman in a genre not typically associated with black performers.

Bringing up someone’s race certainly isn’t evil, but part of my mission in life is to get people to see past it. While I don’t go out of my way to avoid mentioning someone’s race (though I should), I try as much as humanly possible to see past it myself. Sometimes a person’s race is relevant; most of the time, it is not.

It’s all very complicated.

Which brings me back to…race. I’m in agreement with those who question the existence of Black Entertainment Television (BET), black beauty pageants, black awards shows, etc., because I don’t think Americans should separate themselves this way. But as this is America, there is freedom of association. Blacks are free to associate only with blacks and form private black-only organizations. And as this is America, I am free to express my dissent!

When I first heard that former congressman J.C. Watts was forming a black news network, I was a bit disappointed. I’m not sure how conservative Watts is, but he is a Republican. My standards for Republicans tend to be higher. Why does a man who knows how divisive race is and has gone against the grain to become a Republican politician want to start a black news network? Watts said:

“Our community features millions of people with all kinds of backgrounds. There’s a much broader segment of the population than what we see in mainstream news.”

I think his heart is in the right place. Watts wants to show the diversity of thought among blacks in America, something we typically don’t see in mainstream media or on reprehensible BET. Is forming a black-themed network the way to do it?
I agree with my friend and columnist Mychal Massie, who’s even chastised me about focusing too much on “black.” What is black news? Mychal asks. He writes:

“There are things that happen to black people in black communities that don’t really have an impact on the rest of America, but that doesn’t mean they should be provincial to black America. News happening in America is American news, and it should be everyone’s concern.

“When Hurricane Katrina destroyed the overwhelmingly-black Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, it was reported as an American story and not just for blacks. Likewise, the recent tornadoes in predominantly-white Iowa are not just a concern for white America.

“There is quite simply no purely black news just like there is not a purely black sun, moon and stars. There are certainly aspects of stories that may be of more interest to people of a certain race, but it does not justify setting up separate but equal news networks by race in order to discuss it.

“Division among the races is a favorite topic of the major media. How are we going to overcome divisions if blacks are supposed to have their own channel for news and the current news channels are to be regarded as only expressing the views of the white majority?”

As I alluded, Watts is trying to do something good, but I think the price is too high. We need less focus on race in this country, not more, even if the black-focused news is positive. Integrate it with everything else. Why break out “black news”?

Race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race , race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race, race. Will we ever overcome it?

Addendum: I don’t know about “overcoming” race, but I think less about it when I’m around other Christians, as I’m sure God intended. See The Body.

By the way, don’t call me “African American” or use it in the comment section, because I loathe the term. As I wrote in a previous bio: “It is offensive to me. There is no such color, race, or nationality. I am an American of African descent.”

Think about it. It is senseless to refer to a black person as an “African American” unless he/she is an American citizen who was born in Africa.

Update: Here we go. When you blog about a “controversial” topic, there’s bound to be misunderstandings, so don’t misunderstand me. I appreciate diversity of skin color. I don’t have a problem being black or being around blacks. My issue is the constant harping on race and the attention it gets at the expense of everything else. A commenter, who happens to be my sister, wrote:

Race can not be avoided. It is a beautiful thing God has created. It is this fallen world that has made it a problem. If we all come from God’s perspective, it’s a beautiful thing. I love to be at events where there are like-minded people in all kinds of different colors, shapes and sizes. Look for the good and beauty in what God has created. Don’t throw it away because mankind has corrupted it.

Agreed! It is totally unrealistic to expect people not to see differences. That is not what this post is about. When we let those differences define us, however, that’s where I see a problem. A black news network? Come on, people. Black news? But hey, this is just one woman’s opinion. Take it with a proverbial grain of salt.

Keep this is mind: When supporting/advocating a “black” this or a “black” that, you have no moral leg to stand on or coherent argument in your arsenal to oppose a “white” this or “white” that. Double standards are nasty things. Stay away from them.

I’ve got to hand it to Matt Drudge. He’s a born sensationalist. This morning, he took a brief diversion from his usual muckraking political headlines to write an equally muckraking one about a case I told you about a couple of weeks ago.

Download Uproar: Recording industry says illegal to transfer music from CD onto computer….

…screamed the headline, linking to a Washington Post article titled, “Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use.” An excerpt (emphasis in original):

[I]n an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry’s lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are “unauthorized copies” of copyrighted recordings.

Shocking, isn’t it? If only it were true…

Just to be clear, I’m assuming that the brief referred to in the story is the 21-page supplemental brief filed by the RIAA in Atlantic Recording Corporation v. Pamela and Jeffrey Howell, which I wrote about earlier this month. (Note: The reporter confirmed that was the brief to which he was referring.)

In Stop, Thief! Before You Rip That CD… I told you that music and tech bloggers were in an uproar about a supplemental brief the RIAA (a trade organization for the recording industry) filed December 7 in a case called Atlantic Recording Corporation v. Pamela and Jeffrey Howell. A couple was sued for illegally transferring digital music files to a peer-to-peer network called Kazaa. I even linked to the 21-page brief (PDF) so you could read it and make your own assessment.

Some bloggers said the RIAA argued that ripping your own CD to your computer’s hard drive was illegal. I knew that couldn’t be right, so I read the brief. Sure enough, they were wrong. This is the RIAA’s actual contention, which can be found on page 15 (emphasis added):

It is undisputed that Defendant possessed unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings on his computer…Defendant admitted that he converted these sound recordings from their original format to the .mp3 format for his and his wife’s use…Once Defendant converted Plaintiffs’ recording into the compressed .mp3 format and they are in his shared folder, they are no longer the authorized copies distributed by Plaintiffs.

According to the brief, the authorized copies Howell made became unauthorized copies once Howell put them in a shared folder, presumably the Kazaa shared folder. I mentioned in the previous post that a “consummated transfer” wasn’t necessary for a violation to have occurred, according to the RIAA. If you rip a CD and place the MP3s into a folder to which only you have access, the copies are authorized. If the files are in a shared folder, they’re “available” to third parties, which is a copyright violation.

But the issues of “consummated transfer” and files made “available” are moot. Howell in fact transferred the files over the Kazaa network. If you clear away the smoke and ignore the underreported Washington Post story, it becomes obvious that the defendant is being sued for illegal file sharing, not for ripping CDs.

This is how I understand it: Making copies for personal use is OK. Sharing copies with others, even for non-commercial use, is not OK.

Are the RIAA’s arguments nitpicky? Darn right! I’m no fan of the RIAA. I think its position is wrongheaded. It’s scandalous that the music industry has declared war on fans. Scandalous.

But…if you’re going to write a major news story about all this mess, at least be accurate so as not to add to the mess. Then again, the reporter knew the story wouldn’t be half as interesting if he’d reported what’s actually going on.

The RIAA indeed might hold the opinion that copying your own CD for personal use is a copyright violation, but it didn’t make that argument in the brief. In fact, here’s what I found on the RIAA’s web site:

“Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use. We want fans to enjoy the music they bought legally. But both copying CDs to give to friends and downloading music illegally rob the people who created that music of compensation for their work.”

And a link to this (emphasis added):

It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes…It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) – but, again, not for commercial purposes…Beyond that, there’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as…The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own…The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.

Reading the Washington Post story yesterday, I got the impression that the reporter hadn’t read the 21-page brief and wasn’t interested in writing an objective news story. So what else is new?

Update: In a quick response to an e-mail I sent this morning, Marc Fisher, who wrote the WP story, said:

“Yes, the story is based in part on that brief: The industry found the Howells by searching for computers that were sharing files through Kazaa. That’s true of thousands of cases–hardly news. But the news here is the novel argument that the industry lawyer makes in his brief. In this case, the defendant claimed he had no idea he was sharing files, but that’s irrelevant to the argument advanced by the recording companies’ lawyer, who makes the case that the act of transferring music from a legally-purchased CD is in and of itself illegal, even if the file is not being shared.”

In the 21-page brief I read, the RIAA did not argue that ripping a CD you legally own is illegal or that “the act of transferring music from a legally-purchased CD is in and of itself illegal, even if the file is not being shared.” I asked Fisher if he read the brief. He didn’t respond to that question.

Bottom line, the article is misleading, but what does it all matter in the scheme of things anyway?

Wednesday, January 2: Happy New Year, and welcome to LBC! This post has been linked in several discussion forums, and I appreciate the acknowledgement. The Washington Post ought to issue a correction, or at least a clarification, for this story. But it won’t. The story is being cited as the gospel and retold all over the web, but it is intentionally misleading at worst and poorly written/researched at best.

My letter to the editor might be published on January 5. Check back for updates.

Later…The blogger at Coolfer writes (emphasis added):

“When read in context of the entire brief, the Post’s interpretation of that sentence just doesn’t work…This difference in interpretations reflects what William Patry calls a “calculated rhetorical shift” on the part of the press. The Patry Copyright Blog has a post titled “The Establishment Press Takes On The RIAA” on the subject. It’s good reading because it boils the issue down to its basic elements: a (debatable) fight against copyright, journalists acting as activists and the impacts of subtle, semantic twists.”

Thursday, January 3: This post got a brief mention in this news story.

Tuesday, January 8: Finally, the Washington Post sets the record straight, although quite late (emphasis added):

“A Dec. 30 Style & Arts column incorrectly said that the recording industry ‘maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.’ In a copyright-infringement lawsuit, the industry’s lawyer argued that the actions of an Arizona man, the defendant, were illegal because the songs were located in a ’shared folder’ on his computer for distribution on a peer-to-peer network.”

That was fun! The ad hominem-laced e-mail is rolling in already. Keep it coming. I love it. The only thing you’re doing is confirming the stereotype that black people don’t know how to think or express themselves without calling people names. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not going anywhere. As long as CNN producers invite me on the show, I’m going on. Ain’t America great? Free expression, baby.

I asked someone to capture my CNN segment. I hope he got it. I’ll let you know…

Update: Here’s the clip. And this is what started it all. Bill O’Reilly and black journalist Juan Williams were discussing the vileness of the rap subculture, and O’Reilly was trying to make the point, albeit awkwardly, that whites who don’t know blacks or aren’t exposed to blacks may get the impression that the rap subculture represents black America. I was putting his remarks — “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea’” — in context. I’m no Bill O’Reilly apologist, but come on.

[See my review of Juan's book, Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements...]

O’Reilly also said he couldn’t get over the fact that people in a black-owned restaurant behaved no differently than people in any other restaurant. Again, I believe it’s the same awkwardly expressed idea about the rap subculture. Whatever he meant by it, I promise you this: the sky will not fall.

However, some blacks see it differently. It’s a shame that certain black Americans, circa 2007, are so darn sensitive. With no more klansman to defend against or whites-only signs to knock down, they look for racism under cable news rocks. But hey, this is what cable news and the “civil rights” industry are all about.

Paying work calls. Must run.

I guest-hosted “The Casey Lartigue Shop” on XM satellite radio earlier this year with host and friend Casey Lartigue. I’ve known the former Cato education analyst since 2003. I quoted one of his studies in my one and so-far-only Washington Post clip, and we’ve been pals ever since.

(Also see I’m A Libertarian on Education)

Casey told me a couple of months ago he’d been dumped by his radio station. As he told me his story, I wasn’t surprised. I had a bad experience with that particular channel. During an interview, the black liberal host, who didn’t like me, started yelling at me. On the air. I lost my cool, yelled back, and ended up hanging up on him. I hated that I’d lost control like that. Bad form. Weeks later, a producer called and apologized on behalf of the host, and asked me to return to the show. Not in a 1,000 lifetimes, honey. Casey later told me that for a couple of weeks after that show, the station played a clip (as the show’s intro) of me and the host going at it.

Last month, Casey and I appeared on NPR’s black bloggers roundtable, and he told me afterward he was writing a piece about his firing for the Washington Post. He and co-host Eliot Morgan exposed a conspiracy theory that former President Jimmy Carter issued a memorandum back in the day, which purportedly outlined a strategy to undermine black “leaders” in America and “sow discord with Africans abroad,” as a lie.

Casey and Eliot learned that Carter’s actual memo was “a bland call for a bureaucratic review of U.S. policy toward Central American issues.”

“[I]f you think that was the end of the story, you don’t know the world of black talk radio,” they write. “These are the airwaves in which the first president of the United States was a black man, in which AIDS was cooked up in a government laboratory to decimate the black population and in which major corporations lace their food with chemicals to make black men sterile.”

Check out Talk Radio Can’t Handle the Truth.

Marrying White

Anti-miscegenists will hate it. Black women ready for a change will love it. And everybody else, well…

Featured in an Associated Press article are black women who’ve crossed the color line in the dating and marriage field. The article is about how difficult it can be for black women to find marriage-worthy black men. Black men date and marry outside their race at a higher rate than black women, and some of these women are waking up to the possibility themselves.

Quoted in the article is Evia Moore, creator of Black Female Interracial Marriage. Check it out. I blogged about her blog a few months ago.

Natural Allies

In my latest Townhall column, Blacks and Hispanics Natural Allies?, I outline why these two “oppressed” groups are not “natural allies.” Fighting over limited resources and petty concerns is not conducive to an alliance. But joining together for the common goal of keeping America great, that’s a different story. This is The Economist article I cited in the column.

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• Black and Hispanic “Hate” in LA County

Why on earth would the “newspaper of record” do that? Because the accused gang rapists are black and the alleged victim is white.

In the Duke “rape” case, the NYT published story after story, month after month, parroting the district attorney’s lines and tried its best to lend credence to disgraced and disbarred Mike Nifong’s case against three white men. The liberal journalists seized every opportunity to demonize the men accused and slant stories to that end, while setting the poor-oppressed-black-rape-victim narrative in stone.

The headline “Charge against a Player Raises Question of Justice,” should read “Delayed Trial For Gang Rape Victim Raises Question of Justice.” That’s what should be important, not whether some black rapist gets to play ball.

But we know that black-on-white crime bores the heck out of liberals, so to spice things up, they turn the issue on its head and focus on poor oppressed black football players.

Clay Waters of Times Watch, gets to the point much better than I do: “Faced with a black athlete as a suspect and an alleged rape victim who is white, the Times displays a concern for ‘racial overtones’ totally absent in its shoddy coverage of the Duke lacrosse ‘rape’ hoax.”

Indeed. Why wasn’t the NYT concerned about racial overtones in the Duke case, when it was clear to anyone with half a brain that Nifong indicted the white men accused of raping a black woman (with no DNA matches) in a heavily black city to win what otherwise would have been a tough battle to retain his job?

As I said, boring. The libs needed to spice things up, writing snide stories about “rich” white lacrosse players and oppressed black strippers.

The rape victim, now 15, won’t get any sympathy from left-leaning newspapers because she’s white and her rapists are black. Believe whatever you want, but it’s really that simple.

(Hat tip: KC Johnson)

Related post:

• Duke Case: Journalists’ Rush to Judgment

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Envy is ugly. All humans are capable of it, and some display it more than others. It’s always, always unattractive. When I feel a wave of it coming on, I channel the energy toward productive pursuits, drawing on my own strengths to create something instead of wallowing in envy over what others have created or trying to destroy or undermine it.

Envy is exactly why liberals are trying to revive a dead doctrine. Because no one wants to listen to a bunch of whiny white liberals on the radio all day, liberal talk radio is a dud. Conservative talk radio is king, and liberals can’t stand it. Instead of channeling the “envy energy” into creating profitable, market-driven programs (products) of their own, they want to shut down market-driven conservative talk by government fiat. Unimaginatively typical.

I had no idea liberal politicians were this serious about trying to destroy conservative talk radio. Last week, Republicans and a few Democrats in the House of Representatives defeated an attempt to allow liberals to piggyback off the success of conservative radio, the Hill reports.

This wasn’t the first time liberal politicians have attempted to suppress speech they don’t like, and it won’t be the last. They want free speech rights for their views, but they’ll use the government to shut down everyone else’s. It’s frustratingly predictable.

The Hill sums up why conservatives oppose the so-called Fairness Doctrine as applied to talk radio:

Conservatives fear that forcing stations to make equal time for liberal talk radio would slash profits and pressure radio executives to scale back on conservative programming to avoid escalating costs and interference from government regulators. Opponents of the Fairness Doctrine argue that radio stations would suffer financially if forced to air liberal as well as conservative programs because liberal talk radio has not proven popular or profitable. For example, Air America, liberals’ answer to “The Rush Limbaugh Show” and Michael Medved, filed for bankruptcy in October.

Liberals’ motto: “If you can’t compete with it, destroy it.”

Conservatives’ motto: “If you can’t compete with it, find an untapped or under-served market for your product and sell it there.”

Addendum: The left-leaning, taxpayer-supported National Public Radio is 37 years old. I wonder how long it would have survived if it had to rely on advertising instead of tax dollars…

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• Airwave Envy II
• Airwave Envy I