Watch America’s Next Top Model S15E5: Patrick Demarchelier The latest installment of our favorite model wannabes of America’s Next Top Model which is entitled “Patrick Demarchelier” is the model search reality
Continue reading …Michelle Malkin notes that the American heroes in this rescue are not honored in their own country: In a different day and age, Jeff Hart would be the most famous American in our country right now. He would be honored at the White House. Schoolchildren would learn of his skill and heroism. But because Jeff Hart works in an industry under fire by the Obama administration, more people in Chile will celebrate this symbol of American greatness than in America itself. Jeff Hart is a driller based in my home state of Colorado. The father of two has been drilling water wells in Afghanistan at U.S. Army bases. When the San Jose Mine in Chile collapsed in August, he flew to lend his renowned expertise to the rescue effort. As part of an amazing three-way race to the trapped miners, Hart drilled for 33 days straight and was first to reach the caved-in workers. The AP recounts the story — and what strikes me again and again is how the world turned to American ingenuity and American fortitude and American equipment and American enterprise to get the job done. And get it done they did. As I write this nearly 20 miners have been rescued and the rest will be out before the day is done.
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Article by WorldNews.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. “The strike is the weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and having the courage to resist wrong and contend for principle.” -Eugene Debs speaking to striking engineers and firemen during the Pullman Railroad Strike of 1887 “Ugh! Hideous and cheap looking. I will never shop there again.” -Just one of tens of thousands of online comments when Gap revealed their new logo When thousands of people went online protesting GAP’s new logo claiming they would go on strike and boycott the clothing chain, it parodied an earlier era regarding America’s Labor Movement. In 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New…
Continue reading …From Pastor Cary Gordon in Iowa who has had a complaint filed against him with the IRS because he’s actively promoting the ouster of three Iowa Supreme Court justices who voted to legalize gay marriage in that state: “I have never, nor will I ever, get a message from the Holy Spirit and then go check with the IRS tax code first to see if it’s okay to preach it,” he states. “I’m tired of pastors submitting to this tyranny — and I’m expecting to try to get the IRS to sue us so that we can take it all the way to the Supreme Court and restore freedom in America’s pulpits.” This could end up being an important case. As it stands now non-profit organizations are not allowed to play partisan political roles (though we know organizations like the NAACP do it all the time, usually through a shadow organization).
Continue reading …Salon Reviewer Slams ‘Secretariat’ as Tea Party Fantasy ‘Almost Worthy of Leni Riefenstahl’
October 10, 2010 No CommentAt one point in the checkered writing career of your humble correspondent, he criticized children’s cartoons for displaying fascistic attitudes such as Snow White unfairly taking advantage of the labor performed by the Seven Dwarfs. One important caveat; I was just kidding. Yes, even though some people took me seriously, I meant the story to be satire. In the case of Salon.Com reviewer Andrew O’Hehir, he has no such excuse. He actually meant his absurd review of “Secretariat” to be taken completely seriously. Just how absurd was his review? Well, O’Hehir drops any semblance of sanity in his very first paragraph by claiming “Secretariat” was worthy of a Leni Riefenstahl Nazi propaganda movie. So here is the kickoff of the laughable “Triumph of the Will” (or “Triumph of the Horse”) fantasizing by O’Hehir: “Secretariat” is such a gorgeous film, its every shot and every scene so infused with warm golden light, that I began to wonder whether the movie theater were on fire. Or my head. But the welcoming glow that imbues every corner of this nostalgic horse-racing yarn with rich, lambent color comes from within, as if the movie itself is ablaze with its own crazy sense of purpose. (Or as if someone just off-screen were burning a cross on the lawn.) I enjoyed it immensely, flat-footed dialogue and implausible situations and all. Which doesn’t stop me from believing that in its totality “Secretariat” is a work of creepy, half-hilarious master-race propaganda almost worthy of Leni Riefenstahl, and all the more effective because it presents as a family-friendly yarn about a nice lady and her horse. Of course, no leftwing sanity-free movie review would be complete without the requisite gratuitous slap at the Tea Party movement and O’Hehir does not disappoint: Although the troubling racial subtext is more deeply buried here than in “The Blind Side” (where it’s more like text, period), “Secretariat” actually goes much further, presenting a honey-dipped fantasy vision of the American past as the Tea Party would like to imagine it, loaded with uplift and glory and scrubbed clean of multiculturalism and social discord. In the world of this movie, strong-willed and independent-minded women like Chenery are ladies first (she’s like a classed-up version of Sarah Palin feminism), left-wing activism is an endearing cute phase your kids go through (until they learn the hard truth about inheritance taxes), and all right-thinking Americans are united in their adoration of a Nietzschean Überhorse, a hero so superhuman he isn’t human at all. Our Nietzschean Untercritic is on an unintentional comedy roll so far be it from me to stop him from digging deeper into the absurd: The year Secretariat won the Triple Crown was the year the Vietnam War ended and the Watergate hearings began. You could hardly pick a period in post-Civil War American history more plagued by chaos and division and general insanity (well, OK — you could pick right now). Wallace references that social context in the most glancing and dismissive manner possible — Penny’s eldest daughter is depicted as a teen antiwar activist, in scenes that resemble lost episodes of “The Brady Bunch” — but our heroine’s double life as a Denver housewife and Virginia horse-farm owner proceeds pretty much as if the 1950s had gone on forever. (The words “Vietnam” and “Nixon” are never uttered.) The words “Salvador Allende” is never mentioned either. What a tragedy that a two hour movie about a superb racehorse couldn’t take the time to make a meaningless detour to explore that topic and cut into yet more “Secretariat” story time. O’Hehir also couldn’t resist a quick shoutout to Glenn Beck: …and I can’t help thinking that “Secretariat” is meant as a comforting allegory, like Glenn Beck’s sentimental Christmas yarn: The real America has been here all along, and we can get it back. The “Secretariat” director takes the O’Hehir heat for religious thought crimes: Religion and politics are barely mentioned in the story of Chenery and her amazing horse, but it’s clear that “Secretariat” was constructed and marketed with at least one eye on the conservative Christian audiences who embraced “The Blind Side.” The film opens with a voice-over passage from the Book of Job and ends with a hymn. Wallace, also the director of “We Were Warriors” and the writer of “Pearl Harbor” and “Braveheart,” is one of mainstream Hollywood’s few prominent Christians, and has spoken openly about his faith and his desire to make movies that appeal to “people with middle-American values.” GASP! One of the few…but that is still one too many for O’Hehir. The rest of O’Hehir’s review is so chock full of nonsense that even liberal movie critic Roger Ebert derided it as “wildly eccentric.” And one final O’Hehir nugget to demonstrate just how divorced from reality he is: Big Red himself is a big, handsome MacGuffin, symbolic window dressing for a quasi-inspirational fantasia of American whiteness and power. Just remain there in your Salon rubber room, Andrew. The nurse will be along shortly with your lithium shot and soon you might even shed some of your leftwing quasi-inspirational review fantasias.
Continue reading …AP, Smaller Paper Differ Sharply on Direct Strickland Job-Loss Quote During Debate
October 9, 2010 No CommentThis morning’s question is for Mark Kovac of the Wooster (OH) Daily Record and Julie Carr Smyth of the Associated Press. The question is: “Which one of you misquoted what incumbent Ohio Democratic Government Ted Strickland said about jobs lost during the Bush administration at Thursday night’s debate with GOP challenger John Kasich?” Here is the statement involved, as relayed by Kovac (bolds are mine throughout this post): “If my opponent and his friends had had their way, there likely would have been no surviving auto industry in America,” he said, adding later, “I don’t know what you think the president and our Democratic friends should have done. The fact [is] that 8.5 million jobs were lost, and most of those jobs were lost during the Bush Administration . … All you and you friends want to do is criticize and say ‘No, no, no.’” But look at how it appeared in Smyth’s report : “I don’t know what you would have had the president and our Democratic friends do, but the fact is that 8.5 million jobs were lost, Congressman, during the Bush administration,” he said. “We have taken firm action to stabilize this economy, the free fall has been stopped, and all you and your friends want to do is just criticize and say no, no, no.” Note that each bolded segment is carried as a direct quote without ellipses. For the record, as seen here , Strickland would be definitely wrong if he really said what Smyth relayed, and, after considering Inauguration Day, barely wrong with Kovac’s quote. From December 2007 to December 2009, after seasonal adjustments, the economy lost 8.403 million jobs. 4.402 million of them were gone by the end of January 2009, but if you pro-rate January 2009′s 736,000-job loss back to January 20, Inauguration Day, the number drops to about 4.14 million, which is less than half of the total loss, but barely so. Strickland could have said that “about half” of the jobs were lost while Bush remained in charge during the debate, but that would not have had the impact he wanted. So he stretched. Yesterday’s preliminary estimate announced by the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics that 366,000 fewer people were working in March 2010 than originally thought, and that monthly figures for April 2009 through March 2010 would need to be adjusted to reflect this finding, will render Strickland wrong by an even larger margin when they are finalized in March 2011. Now let’s look at the potential impact if, as seems likely, Strickland really said what Kovac relayed (“8.5 million jobs were lost, and most of those jobs were lost during the Bush Administration”): A Google News search on [Strickland Kasich "8.5 million"] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets) returns the two reports cited as the only ones who carried this quote. A Google News search on the title of Kovac’s item (“Candidates square off in final debate,” typed in quotes) indicates that his report has appeared only at his home paper. Strickland’s assertion as carried is wrong, as shown above, but not seriously so. If Smyth misquoted Strickland, as seems likely, it’s a serious error, and her failure to properly quote the Governor requires a correction. Since a Google News search on the title of Smyth’s item (“Ohio governor candidates clash on taxes, spending,” again typed in quotes, sorted by date with duplicates included) shows that her report has appeared in 71 places, make that at least 71 corrections. Or, again if Strickland said what Kovac quoted, are Julie Carr Smyth and her employer both okay with misleading readers into believing that over four million more jobs were lost during the final year or so of the Bush administration than actually were? Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
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America was horrified by the story that erupted in the national news, that Rutgers college freshman Tyler Clementi threw himself off a bridge because his new roommate used a webcam to tape a homosexual encounter in which he’d engaged. Media outlets quickly dispatched their cavalry to find the experts to explain why America is a land of incessant bullying. The if is no longer debatable. We’re on to the why. This could have been a moment of national unity. Almost everyone can tell a story of being the target of bullying or mean-spirited ridicule about being too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny, too dumb, too smart, you name it. But others found this tragedy offered too rich a rhetorical opportunity. It was not a suicide to them. It was a murder. CNN’s “Larry King Live” brought on the antonym of human dignity, Kathy Griffin, who quickly inflamed the Clementi moment by charging “the blood’s on their hands” of our “so-called leaders.” She insisted, “I think that the way that we had trickle-down economics in the ’80s, this is trickle-down homophobia. And I really want people to connect the dots. And that’s why I believe there’s a connection between Prop 8, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and now the string of teen suicides.” Holy smokes. So Ronald Reagan killed him. Let’s put aside that ridiculous “connecting the dots” charge for a second. Larry King should have been asked: Given that Kathy Griffin regularly takes to the stage and television to viciously attack other people, is she really the kind of personality that can plausibly pose as the guardian of empathy and the role model for anti-bullying behavior? This year, she made the rounds of talk shows laughing up the controversy she created when she said Sen. Scott Brown’s daughters were “prostitutes.” One daughter, Arianna, is a freshman at Syracuse University – the same age as the boy who took his own life. Griffin’s even wished violence on people. She recently told a Playgirl magazine writer “I’d like to push Sarah Palin down the stairs.” Now she’s CNN’s anti-bullying poster child. But Griffin wasn’t alone. Sitting right next to her was lesbian comic Wanda Sykes, who chimed in with her own love taps. “In the laws and everything else that’s out here, in the churches that they preach that homophobia [sic] is wrong. You pretty much have given kids permission to disrespect and, you know, and to cause harm to the gay and lesbian community.” This is the same “comedian” who “joked” in front of the president that she hoped Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys failed and he died. Now, she’s on CNN lecturing on bullying. Then there’s Sarah Silverman, another comedian who thrives on shocking and insulting comments. Silverman went on YouTube to lecture the country: “Dear America, When you tell gay Americans that you can’t serve their country openly or marry the person that they love, you’re telling that to kids, too. So don’t be f—ing shocked, wondering where all these bullies are coming from who are torturing young kids and driving them to kill themselves because they’re different. They learned it from watching you.” Once again, putting aside the downright stupid accusation that opposing gay marriage is a bullying-and-suicide platform, is Silverman a role model against bullying? At almost the same time her accusatory video piled up more than 200,000 views, Silverman was vomiting this sex “joke” on Twitter: “9/11 widows give the best [sex act].” Can you say cognitive dissonance? She’s now lecturing on bullying. The left has no shame. None. On her satellite radio show, Rosie O’Donnell joined in the same party-line smear: “Well, if the society sanctions bigotry against gay people, how can you expect the children of this society not to…internalize that? Whether it’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ whether it’s gay marriage, [it's] being told by your country that you are not as valuable as your neighbor who’s straight.” Rosie O’Donnell denouncing bullying is akin to Michael Vick denouncing dog fighting. Perhaps the least famous but most ridiculous scold on this issue is Hollywood gossip Perez Hilton, who CNN also sought out for advice and hailed his anti-suicide activism. Hilton’s most famous for being a judge in the Miss USA contest and demanding during the final question-and-answer period that Miss California Carrie Prejean endorse gay marriage. When she refused, he did a round of interviews calling her a “dumb [B-word].” Then on a picture of her holding a microphone, he drew in a penis on his website. He’s done that and worse sexual smears to celebrity pictures for years. Now he’s featured on CNN in an ongoing parade of guests denouncing conservatives for bullying.
Continue reading …Newsweek’s Clift Plays Democratic Strategist with ‘What Obama Must Do After the Midterms’
October 8, 2010 No Comment
Apparently the political death panel at Newsweek is resigned to the fact that the Democratic Congress is DOA come November 2. Thus braced for the impact of a possible Republican congressional takeover, uber-liberal Newsweek writer Eleanor Clift donned her political strategist cap to openly advise Obama that how, “Just as Clinton did in ’94,” he’ll need to “reaffirm his relevance and return to his core principles.” But haven’t Obama’s core liberal principles been the problem that’s brought about this impending midterm doom? And while Clinton was no right-winger, it’s indisputable that a Republican Congress helped push him to the center, which explains his final capitulation to welfare reform as well as his support of capital gains tax cuts. Does Clift really think Obama needs to double-down on liberal policies after a midterm thumping? But why let those pesky details get in the way of an inspiring narrative hearkening Democrats back to the glory days of their last two-term president? The important thing for Clift is that Clinton masterfully played public opinion to cruise to reelection and close out his tenure in office with high approval ratings, despite his personal and legal dirty laundry. Of course, curiously absent from her October 8 piece was any examination of the role the media played in Clinton’s successful political makeover post-1994. Clinton and the Democrats found a handy whipping boy in Newt Gingrich and the mainstream media were more than happy to be willing partners in vilifying the Republican House Speaker as a threat to America’s senior citizens and children. The media most certainly would attempt to play a similar role in the next two years, although Americans have wised up about the media’s liberal bias, as recent polling data show : WASHINGTON, D.C. — For the fourth straight year, the majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% who now say this is a record high by one percentage point. The 43% of Americans who, in Gallup’s annual Governance poll, conducted Sept. 13-16, 2010, express a great deal or fair amount of trust ties the record low, and is far worse than three prior Gallup readings on this measure from the 1970s . Nearly half of Americans (48%) say the media are too liberal, tying the high end of the narrow 44% to 48% range recorded over the past decade. One-third say the media are just about right while 15% say they are too conservative. Overall, perceptions of bias have remained quite steady over this tumultuous period of change for the media, marked by the growth of cable and Internet news sources . Americans’ views now are in fact identical to those in 2004, despite the many changes in the industry since then.
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So MTV is holding a “townhall” for President Obama on Oct. 14, at 4 p.m. in Washington, D.C. In this case, a town hall is short-hand for “an event where annoying questions are asked by unemployed hipsters with vintage t-shirts and edgy eyewear.” But a casting call has surfaced, and this is what it says: Seeking-Audience Members: males & females, 18+. To ensure that the audience represents diverse interests and political views, include your name…and what issues, if any, you are interested in or passionate about. Also, provide a recent photo and short description of your political views. So what’s the point of this pre-screening process? Well, it serves three purposes: One: to make sure the audience reflects America – which, coming from MTV – means it will look like something a Benetton ad might vomit, if it could vomit. Get ready for every nationality you can think of, plus of few you’ve never heard of – along with some amusing piercings and Asian lettered tattoos. My prediction: there will be a transgendered Eskimo with ADHD there to ask Obama to get her harp seal recognized as an assistant animal. Two: to make sure the questions asked will reflect the MTV’s earnest concerns. The environment. Health care. Amnesty. Hermaphrodite bathroom rights. The central strategy: to avoid coming down too hard on Obama, and instead placing the criticism on us, for expecting too much from Captain Delicious. And three: a smattering of hot chicks and some wistful emo dudes, who will fawn over Obama like he’s Justin Bieber with a tan. Me, I can’t wait to watch – I find projectile vomiting is ten times better than the Stairmaster when it comes to losing weight. And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist, homophobic paraphobe. Crossposted at Big Hollywood
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