Thank goodness our foes can't help themselves, either

Did I ever tell you I spent a year and a half in Beijing? Well, I did, living and working among ordinary Chinese in the employ of the news division of China Central Television, which falls under the authority of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and which therefore constitutes part of the ChiCom propaganda machine.

I think I got to know the ChiComs and the Chinese, and I can tell you that when you hear about "Chinese nationalism," it ain't no lie. Neither is Chinese imperialism. One Chinese friend of mine who had studied in Germany was quite miffed about the Chinese who have made permanent homes there. "They don't care about China," she said disapprovingly. "They just care about themselves, and living well." I could scarcely imagine an American ever feeling that way about Americans who were living happily and prosperously abroad.

Another Chinese friend bemoaned China's authoritarian chokehold on individual freedoms. She waxed hopeful about China someday becoming the global hegemon, and asked me timidly, "Was America like this when it was a developing country?" She hoped, poor dear, that the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and the crushing of the Falun Gong all made up a similar path to the one America took to becoming the shining city on a hill.

As I see it, China at this moment has two huge opportunities to stride ahead of America. One is in the information industry. If Xinhua were to undertake a mission of doing superior coverage of the Obama presidency, it could surpass American mainstream media with one hand tied behind its back and put America to shame as a nation that has to have its own doings revealed to it by outsiders. Assign their best and brightest to make what they can of American J-school and History degrees, study American media and its discontents, and single-mindedly dedicate itself to digging up and objectively reporting every last fact about this administration that anyone possibly can. For the story about Obama, the world would turn to CCTV the same way it did to the National Enquirer during the John Edwards baby scandal. I can see the earnest little anchors, relating in their carefully-shaped British vowels the broken promises and mathematical impossibilities this administration engages in on a daily basis. There is something about those porcelain faces and imperturbable tones that erects a great wall of utter resistance against the most outraged cries; they could effortlessly deflect the angriest of Obama's utterances and deeds (which are doubtless yet to be made). The Chinese are not stupid or lazy. They have hungry minds. They could do it.

The second is the myth of Anthropogenic Global Warming. If Chinese scientists were to stand as the solitary nation to defy this hoax and to implacably deny the parasitic surrounding industries, China would emerge as the guy who championed scientific truth all along and who saved the world from its own ass, with America and Al Gore left as the pathetic, malevolent liars who tried to trick everyone into killing themselves.

But fortunately for America, for now, Communist China is even more self-defeating than we are in these regards. They are desperate to protect their own myths, which gives us a little breathing room.

"I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this Earth doing the things I have always done."

I used to be the just-shoot-me type. "If I ever get that way, just shoot me." "You have my permission: just shoot me." "I'd rather die than end my days as a drooling loon."

Then came June 5, 2004.

I had largely forgotten about Ronald Reagan since he'd told Americans in a hand-written note that he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. Since that announcement, he had drifted into my consciousness from time to time, and each time I'd shudder to think of what Nancy must be going through. "The poor woman -- she must be a saint." On the day he finally died, he came rushing back to my mind with new meaning. One, I had given up on liberalism and begun to rethink everything I thought I knew about him. Two, it suddenly seemed like an eternity since that announcement; it stunned me to think of the man and his loved ones enduring ten years of his decline. Three, I got to thinking, if this guy could say farewell to his mind, his life, his memories, his knowledge, his ideas, his identity, all from the station of the recent presidency of the United States, then what the hell did I have to be so precious about? I of all people must be spared such indignity? Ronald Reagan could embark on a trip from Everest to hell, but I was too special to get pushed down the bunny slope?

I shared these thoughts with a couple of strangers on the last Election Day. The line was hours long, and I got to chatting with the people around me. We didn't specifically talk politics or say whom we were voting for, but we did sense a shared philosophy that emboldened us to keep talking. We fell into a conversation about getting busy, doing things that needed to be done, not making excuses, not wimping out. "What are you waiting for? What's stopping you?" one woman pressed when I said I was thinking about going back to school.

When I mentioned my Ronald Reagan epiphany, the same woman jumped right in about the people who had built our country with their own hands. "Can you imagine if they'd given up?" she asked. "We complain about our lives, but what kind of lives would we have if they'd given up?"

All this comes back to mind as I contemplate some of the despair and sense of surrender over the current state of America. I'll admit I don't know exactly what to do, but obligingly climbing into the grave the liberals are digging for us ain't it. If some dreadful "health" "care" "reform" passes, I promise I'll find something to do and I'll let you know what it is.

One more thing: The woman whom I spoke to was Black and middle-aged. As we talked, I got her name and the city where she lives. I've found her exact address in the Yahoo White Pages. I'm thinking of writing to her and asking what she thinks of the current state of the country. I have no idea whether she voted for Obama. What do you say? Do I contact Carol?

All grown up and no place to go

I first saw Dakota Fanning in Man on Fire. Struck by her beauty and talent, I felt she would be the next Jodie Foster -- a child actress who does stunning work as a tyke and then develops terrifying capabilities as an adult, perhaps eventually directing and writing. That feeling was strengthened by my enjoyment of her performance in War of the Worlds, in which she held her own opposite Tom Cruise in a way I have never seen an adult actress do.

She is now 15 going on 16, with the little girl roles behind her, and BOOM -- she is scheduled to star in two films from the stupid teen vampire fantasy Twilight, an entertainment franchise that typifies the current state of popular culture (abysmal). I suffered through Twilight with a teenaged cousin; she considered the movie ultra-cool. I glanced at a few pages of the book and gave it a "Meh." "Well, would you have liked it when you were my age?" my cousin asked. I explained that when I was her age I was fond of the classics. Dickens, the Brontes, Thackeray, Wilde, Ibsen, Austen. And I actually think Man on Fire and War of the Worlds were better than Twilight.

Today is December 15, and the Christmas blockbuster season should be jammin'. But there's virtually nothing I want to see. I know I'm not alone; Victor Davis Hanson's essay, "Confessions of a Cultural Dropout," gathered 514 comments on Pajamas Media, the most I've ever seen. Are there any serious, intelligent actors in Hollywood? What do they think of their their art form these days? I fear Hollywood is going to go the way of General Motors: a formerly great American industry to be done in by bad politics, bad products, and bad management, with bean-counters making the artistic calls. Hollywood itself is already being dispersed to various countries around the world where labor and fees are cheaper and unions are avoidable.

Whither Dakota Fanning and other young talents? Hollywood might retain some ability to produce a small number of smart, quality films, but barring some sort of renaissance akin to that of the 70s, I think this extraordinarily promising artist is coming of age just as her milieu is turning into a wasteland.

Accessories

Shoes:



Hat:




Jewelry:

Trig

Kill him?

Dear God, I'm not the one who's saying it. No, this is the apparent aim of pro-lifers who would allow abortions "in cases of rape or incest." In fact, these words appear in a recent version of the Senate health care bill. (Also mentioned is "the mother's health.")

Why incest? The common explanation is that such offspring are more likely to suffer from birth defects. I don't know what the numbers are and how severe and which diseases and so forth, and I suspect those writing the laws don't, either.

But babies with birth defects is what's trying to be prevented -- so why don't pro-lifers also make an exception for pregnancies in women over the age of 40? Or 45 or 50? Those pregnancies are more likely to result in birth defects, too.

In fact, why do they even mess with mere probability? This is the 21st century! We can do accurate tests that tell us all about a fetus's health. If the idea is to prevent defective births, why not permit abortion for any woman whose amniocentesis or other test results show Down Syndrome, spina bifida, or any congenital defect that can also be traced to incest?

The answer to this question has nothing to do with the special individuals whom we accommodate quite well in our society. No self-respecting pro-lifer would ever suggest that we allow married women to abort babies such as Trig at will. So let's go back to those two categories: Rape, and Incest. What's the common thread here? Answer: They are both forms of forbidden sex. That's what these exceptions are all about. And if that's what the exceptions are about, then what are the restrictions about to begin with? I think it's less the life of the offspring and more the sex life of the mother.

There are a few pro-lifers who have the intellectual honesty to state that rape victims should be forced, through the agency of armed police and confinement behind bars, to carry their pregnancies to term. I haven't yet heard of any who say the same of a girl who gets it on with her brother.

Their guy?

You do remember these words:

In things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. We, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.

They were uttered by Attorney General Eric Holder in a speech to Justice Department employees marking The Month Formerly Known as February earlier this year. Well, I'm taking Holder at his word. Coward no more!

Here's where I would like to begin a courageous conversation about race:

November 25, 2009: Seventy-four percent (74%) of African-Americans Strongly Approve along with just 19% of white voters. The President earns approval from 97% of African-American voters and disapproval from 61% of white voters. -- Rasmussen Reports

Not since Saddam Hussein's last election have I seen anything that comes so close to a statistical impossibility. Ninety-seven percent, are you kidding me? I've never known of a valid poll that showed such a large number of people agreeing on anything. Is anyone else shocked by that number?

No no, I'VE got the ultimate cake recipe

Have you ever heard of Tortuga Rum Cake? I had some of this insane stuff one Christmas and I knew I had to have more. The recipe is a family secret, and the rum used in it is not available to the public. You can order it online or shop it up in a few stores -- out here in California you can get it at Von's.

Or you can bake a very good approximation of it. This is a relatively simple one-bowl cake that will make people think you are an ingenious cook. It's a nostril-thrilling, palate-glutting swoon of rum, butter, and sugar, held together by a moist, golden, coconutty smoosh.

ALMOST TORTUGA RUM CAKE

Don't substitute any of the ingredients

Ingredients

Basic Cake Mix
• 2 cups flour (splurge on cake flour if you like)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, cut into bits
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

For the Cake
• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts -- toast them lightly in the oven for about 5 minutes at 350 if you like
• 1 (3 1/2 ounce) package vanilla pudding mix (the kind that cooks)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup Whaler Vanille rum
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup of flaked coconut (optional, but highly recommended)

Rum Soaking Glaze
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup Whaler Vanille rum

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. 
Spray a large Bundt pan (12 cup) with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts on the bottom.
4. In a large mixing bowl, combine Basic Cake Mix ingredients.
5. On low speed, combine ingredients until the mix is the consistency of fine gravel, and all particles are about the same size. (Or do it in a food processor.)
6. Place Basic Cake Mix, pudding mix, milk, eggs, rum, oil, and vanilla extract in a large bowl and combine on medium speed with electric mixer for 2 to 3 minutes. The batter should be very smooth.
7. Stir in the coconut with a spoon or spatula.
8. Pour into Bundt pan and bake for about 55 minutes- until fully golden and tester comes out clean and cake springs back.
9. Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack while making the soaking glaze.

Rum Soaking Glaze
10. Combine butter, water and sugar in a small saucepan.
11. Bring to a boil carefully as mixture boils over very easily.
12. 
Reduce to a simmer and cook until sugar is dissolved and syrup is well combined and a little thicker.
13. Remove from the heat and add the rum, mix to combine.
14. While cake is still cooling, poke holes in it with a fork and pour some of the hot syrup on top of the cake, allowing it time to soak in (this may take a few minutes as there will be a lot of syrup). Continue to add syrup until it's all added.
15. Allow cake to cool completely in pan before turning out onto serving platter.
16. This cake is delicate, so once it is turned out, it cannot be moved around easily.
17. Can be eaten once it's fully cool, but even better the next day!

People who worship athletes and entertainers deserve all the disillusionment they get

Sports and news commentators say they are "saddened" and "devastated" by the revelation that Tiger Woods is a slut. Some are standing by their man. "He's a great American and I support him a hundred percent," Bo Dietl gushingly told Sean Hannity in a radio interview. Hannity promised "the latest" on Tiger on his t.v. show.

Why the disappointment? Why the urgency? Why the desire to suss out this story for a ray of redemption? Why do Tiger's fans expect him to do anything other than hit a small ball into an even smaller hole using objects singularly unsuited to the purpose? Are we still surprised that one nerve center can possess both the ability to run like hell with a football and to stab two people to death? Why should one preclude the other? I suppose the best damned carpenter in town wouldn't be subject to the same notions of moral infallibility.

I've heard countless men calling in to talk radio to protest that they had told their boys to "look up to Tiger." Why in hell? I can see telling your kid to grab Tiger's lifestyle, but what is this bullshit about athletic achievement equaling moral superiority?

Look for the Time or People or other stupid magazine headline, "Do We Expect Too Much of Our Athletes?" The writer will ponder at length whether it's fair for us to set these people on pedestals, but the question is irrelevant. Fairness is waaaay down on the list of important issues here. The primary issue is plain old logic.

Sexy

Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama

I attended the retirement dinner of a 20-year man a few months ago. I won't name the branch since I don't want to embarrass anyone. Anyway, the party was politics-free, good people from all over the country, a range of ages, plenty of family and friends. The speeches focused on family, fraternity, country, and faith. Casual conversation was free of cynicism. No fear of exposing your values to your neighbor or appreciating virtue out loud. When the reading of the presidential certificate came, and the words "Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama" were pronounced, the room palpably winced. Servicemen and women at attention, civilians respectfully on their feet, everyone, as if on cue, audibly suppressed a gag, choke, groan, or gasp.

We all knew that this guy doesn't "get" the military. (Cassandra of Villainous Company wrote on this point recently, but it's worth repeating, and besides it's something I've written about before and I want to say it again.) This is one of those things where either you do or you don't. Barack and Michelle no more understand serving the country this way and supporting family through the long separations, the uncertainty, and the worries than a cat can understand vegans. They have never known the pride, the awe, the gratitude, the impulse to weep over an unknown soldier's grave, that people who love the military have known. They don't "get" anyone who makes a point of attending a Veteran's Day parade or considers the Flag Retreat on Main Street the indispensable event on a visit to Disneyland.

His awful speech tonight, on the 30,000 troops he is measuring out to General McChrystal, will be written about in greater detail than I will provide here. I listened to the whole thing and I can't stand to revisit it. Let it suffice to say that his history lesson, sermon, self-promotion, and sanctimony dripped with phoniness and stupidity. I eagerly await the day when he and Michelle exit the White House for the last time, shake hands with Sarah and Todd Palin, and sullenly flee the cameras to nurse their anger on the long helicopter ride back to Chicago.

Is it me, or is Williams-Sonoma turning into a glorified grocery store?

I've been wandering into Williams-Sonoma lately because 1) my funderemployment has me situated near one and 2) I need cupcake stuff.

Every time I go in, something delicious is being cooked but not served. Some lovely gingerbready thing or some cheesy buttery crusty delight is sitting on a hot surface, just out of reach of casual shoppers, with a giant silver coffeepot similarly placed. The green-aproned employees are busy doing anything but dishing it out. At Trader Joe's you can walk right up and get their Sample of the Day for the asking, along with juice or coffee. At Costco you can get an entire lunch.

On the shelves, I see things like cornbread mix, tins of candies and cookies, and even hot chocolate mix -- hot chocolate mix!? I went in the other day looking for Dutch-process cocoa and left empty-handed. What's with a gourmet who can't heat up some cocoa, sugar, milk, and flavoring?

My memory may be wrong, but it seems to me that W-S used to be for hard-core cooks who were big on preparation and presentation. Now they're selling expensive add-water-and-stir versions of the things you're supposed to lovingly labor over using their stawberry-hullers, egg-separators, and individual caviar servers.

But enough of the bitching. This thing looks sooooo fun:

It's a giant-cookie-shaped cake pan. You never have to frost the sides of a cake again, and you still look like a star.

Motley CRU

Siege warfare is what the AGW crowd has been attempting on the world's producers of wealth and innovation. There is no way around it. As we all know, siege warfare is not pitched battle between soldiers, but economic deprivation of civilians. It prevents trade to and strangles industry within the target population. It is an illegitimate form of war. When waged unconstrained, it is horrific -- cf. cannibalism in Leningrad.

What does the harm done by the AGW fraud look like close up? What exactly happens when you divert the world's wealth from shelter, food, and medicine to this fraud? Meet Dr. Samuel Mowangi of Kenya:



Imagine a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand Dr. Mowangis around the world. Imagine mothers of young children, imagine communities trying to take care of their neediest members, held back by crippling taxes and fines, and lack of basic goods and services. The evil and suffering would be more diffuse than history's most notorious sieges, but I have no doubt that it would be as severe.

Oh, and . . .

Notice anything about Dr. Mowangi? He's Black! In the United States, the destructiveness of the Left to struggling minorities is well documented. (Go back to Pat Moynihan's report from 1965, and follow up with the scholarly work of Thomas Sowell and Heather MacDonald.) Have you noticed that the Left eternally hogs its feasts -- its conferences in Tahiti, its houseboats, the self-indulgences of rock bands and the profits of a successful global airline -- while tossing the crumbs to the like of Africans? Would Al Gore, Bono, or Richard Branson choose to be treated in a clinic like Dr. Mowangi's? No, this type of connected, organic, clean, harmonious, natural suffering is left to noble savages and little brown brothers in distant, romantic lands. The rich white industrialists who would gather the lucre of the AGW fraud to themselves will be treated in technological oases that will become rarer and less accessible to the rabble as their agenda proceeds. I will give my summation of their attitude its own paragraph:

Let the Africans suffer and die. We can cleanse our souls by feeling sorry for them.

Free editorial to good leftist home -- matures in three years

"The proponents of Anthropogenic Global Warming may have been wrong in their facts, but they were entirely noble in their intentions. These people believed they saw disastrous environmental conditions looming, and they did their utmost to stop it. Perhaps they bent rigid scientific standards a bit in their zeal to get the word out, and they might have sounded human (horrors!) when they exchanged private e-mails. It is also understandable that they would feel a little combative in the face of the extreme hostility they suffered from conservatives and skeptics. But their hearts were in the right place, and we should continue to listen to them as they explore the future of planetary change. The brakes that were put on runaway industrial development as a result of their inquiries doubtless prevented a great number of medical and ecological disasters in any case.

"Those who deny the latest discoveries in Planetary Change are taking us down a cataclysmic road. They point to the mistakes of the AGW scientists and say 'Here we go again.' Well, this isn't the same data set and it isn't the same science. If we don't act now to curb our manic consumption and save the planet, in ten years it may be too late."

Sarah and Hannity (a mostly dull post about a mostly dull interview)

Sean Hannity devoted an entire show to a Palin interview, a whirlwind tour of a few pages of Going Rogue and all the issues of the day. These friendly interviews yield no surprises or sparks. I truly enjoyed Sarah in the Vice Presidential debate, and I'd love to hear her argue in depth with a more contrarian interlocutor on hard issues.

At times, she speaks in that equivocating, cautious political lingo that seems to serve as some form of professional courtesy and a signal to viewers and voters that one is temperamentally safe. Journalists and commentators, however, are freer. "I think he's a socialist," Hannity happily declares of Obama. "Do you think he's a socialist?"

"I think that he certainly is ceding more and more power -- he is taking it away from the individual and from our small businesses, and he's empowering government, and that's a dangerous path for our country to be on," she answers.

"Do you think the President has a pre-9/11 mentality?" Sean queries. Sarah responds: "There are some actions that are being taken today that would make someone assume that that is what that mentality is."

While bloggers and Fox News hosts are talking about the Second and Twenty-Second Amendments, Sarah says that Americans must "pay attention," "have their voices heard," and "remind our federal government" of our "expectation." Various of Obama's acts are "a shame" and "quite unfortunate." "All we're asking," she begins one sentence.

She does throw a few knives. The leaders (of Syria, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Cuba) whom Obama vowed to meet with are "madmen." The Fort Hood shooting was an act of terrorism, the result of "a fear of being politically incorrect," and a case for profiling. "I'm gonna get clobbered tomorrow morning" for using that word, she acknowledges. She says "the lamestream media" does not tell the truth about her and that "the haters" will have a lot to talk about.

As for 2012? "Not ruling it out. You're going to hear a lot from me."

Coercion

In her interview with Oprah, Sarah Palin talked of "wanting to usher in a culture of life and empower women to know that they're strong enough and smart enough to have that child." A few points.

One, it is probably true of most women that "they're strong enough and smart enough to have that [unplanned/unwanted] child." It is probably not true of girls, and women who act like girls.

Two, does Sarah believe that coercing women and girls to carry unwanted pregnancies to term through the agency of armed police and threat of jail will "empower" them?

Three, if women are "strong enough and smart enough to have that child," aren't they strong enough and smart enough to know when not to?

Sarah and Oprah

Oprah Winfrey and Sarah Palin are two attractive, well-presented, well-mannered women. They had a conversation about Sarah's life and experiences in the 2008 presidential campaign that I found pleasant but dull; nothing new in there for us news junkies, and virtually nothing of political substance. Nevertheless, I look forward to reading Going Rogue so I can analyze Sarah's prose and learn a little more about the business of political campaigns. I also hope that subsequent interviews are meatier. I just saw 20-year-old Hannah Giles on Hannity and she came off as tougher and more active than Sarah did in her cozy chat.

Oprah and Sarah are two American women who seized opportunity with their own hands and worked hard to fashion rich lives and unique careers. They both look the way middle-aged women should: fit, polished, busy, fulfilled. The power and success of both of these women is a testament to America.

People say Sarah is an enigma, but Oprah's the one who is unfathomable to me. She cannot have attained such wild success without some degree of genius or intellect -- so how is it that she so deeply admires Michelle Obama, who argues against the very American dream of which Oprah stands as living proof? Is Oprah shallow, inattentive, easily fooled, in denial? Is she actually in sympathy with Michelle's wrong-headed and foul perceptions of America? I haven't watched Oprah in years, but I do catch the occasional news story about her -- her promotion of the vaccine scare and her intimation that she was denied entry because of her race to a Paris salon that happened to be closed for business are the two I can recall at the moment. These tidbits do not speak well of her mind, so maybe she simply is too dumb to see that Michelle is wrong or that she is a dour, anti-American, malcontent. How could anyone prefer her to Sarah?

Asian potpourri

Kim Dae-Jung was a Korean dissident in the 1970s and 80s -- jailed, exiled, and ultimately freed at the urging of the United States. He ran for president of Korea in 1988. Kim was a demogogue; Koreans reacted to his speeches with either adulation or nausea. Although he did not gain the presidency on that attempt, he was a "keep the faith" kind of guy for many years, wringing from many Koreans tears of longing for the utopia that was sure to bloom beneath their feet if he should ever come to power.

In 1998 he finally did ascend to the Blue House (the Korean White House), and embarked upon a long-promised program of engagement with North Korea. For his "Sunshine Policy" he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2000. My Korean friends informed me that ever afterward he cared little for the business of presiding over the country, which incidentally had not become a utopia, and instead flew about the world soaking up love for his Nobel prize. Koreans grew disgusted with him. "He's lost the cab drivers," a friend told me -- the seal of doom. As for the Sunshine Policy, it proved to be entirely one-sided, with huge donations of cash, goods and services, as well as good-will gestures, flowing from South to North, and broken promises flowing from North to South. Does any of this sound familiar?

Our tour continues. This idiotic bow-cum-handshake is not Japanese:

It's some sort of ring-kissing miss that could be European or Persian, I suppose. A proper Japanese bow is performed with the hands relaxed and still at one's sides. If Obama wants to make a show of his superior cosmopolitan international multicultural global citizenry, he's failing. What a buffoon.

Now HERE's a bow:

Not only a bow, but further proof of the superiority of Western civilization! This image is from The Last Samurai. The guy groveling on the ground in humiliation and supplication is a middle-aged warrior, father, farmer, community leader, and teacher; the guy on his feet basking in power and respect is a teenager. The teenager is Emperor of Japan, thanks to his wisdom, maturity, virtue, leadership skills, intelligence, and experience being born that way. "If I am no use, then I will happily end my life," the grown man says to the kid. That's what having or being an emperor means. Thank God I come from a country that is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. It's a notion that should be spread, not checked.

(I will qualify the preceding by noting that Imperial Japan may not have been as bad as all that; some evils in life and fiction are attributable to the involvement of Tom Cruise.)

2012

The following, by Alaskan Dewey Whetsell, has been going around the net lately:

The last 45 of my 66 years I've spent in a commercial fishing town in Alaska. I understand Alaska politics but never understood national politics well until this last year. Here's the breaking point: Neither side of the Palin controversy gets It's not about persona, style, rhetoric, its about doing things. Even Palin supporters never mention the things that I'm about to mention here.

1- Democrats forget when Palin was the Darling of the Democrats, because as soon as Palin took the Governors office away from a fellow Republican and tough SOB, Frank Murkowski, she tore into the Republicans Corrupt Bastards Club (CBC) and sent them packing. Many of them are now residing in State housing and wearing orange jump suits. The Democrats reacted by skipping around the yard, throwing confetti and singing la la la la (well, you know how they are). Name another governor in this country that has ever done anything similar. But while you're thinking, I'll continue.

2- Now with the CBC gone, there were fewer Alaskan politicians to protect the huge, giant oil companies here. So, she constructed and enacted a new system of splitting the oil profits called ACES. Exxon (the biggest corporation in the world) protested and Sarah told them don't let the door hit you in the stern on your way out. They stayed, and Alaska residents went from being merely wealthy to being filthy rich. Of course the other huge international oil companies meekly fell in line. Again, give me the name of any other governor in the country that has done anything similar.

3- The other thing she did when she walked into the governors office is she got the list of State requests for federal funding for projects, known as pork. She went through the list, took 85% of them and placed them in the when-hell-freezes-over stack. She let locals know that if we need something built, well pay for it ourselves. Maybe she figured she could use the money she got from selling the previous governors jet because it was extravagant. Maybe she could use the money she saved by dismissing the governor's cook (remarking that she could cook for her own family), giving back the State vehicle issued to her, maintaining that she already had a car, and dismissing her State provided security force (never mentioning, I imagine, that she's packing heat herself). I'm still waiting to hear the names of those other governors.

4- Now, even with her much-ridiculed gosh and golly mannerism, she also managed to put together a totally new approach to getting a natural gas pipeline built which will be the biggest private construction project in the history of North America. No one else could do it although they tried. If that doesn't impress you, then you're trying too hard to be unimpressed while watching her do things like this while baking up a batch of brownies with her other hand.

5- For 30 years, Exxon held a lease to do exploratory drilling at a place called Point Thompson. They made excuses the entire time why they couldn't start drilling. In truth they were holding it like an investment. No governor for 30 years could make them get started. This summer, she told them she was revoking their lease and kicking them out. They protested and threatened court action. She shrugged and reminded them that she knew the way to the court house. Alaska won again.

6- President Obama wants the nation to be on 25% renewable resources for electricity by 2025. Sarah went to the legislature and submitted her plan for Alaska to be at 50% renewables by 2025. We are already at 25%. I can give you more specifics about things done, as opposed to style and persona . Everybody wants to be cool, sound cool, look cool. But that’s just a cover-up. I'm still waiting to hear from liberals the names of other governors who can match what mine has done in two and a half years. I wont be holding my breath.

By the way, she was content to to return to AK after the national election and go to work, but the haters wouldn't let her. Now these adolescent screechers are obviously not scuba divers. And no one ever told them what happens when you continually jab and pester a barracuda. Without warning, it will spin around and tear your face off. Shoulda known better.

Obama on the next 9/11

One of the distressing prospects of a President Hillary Clinton (back in the good old days when she was all we had to fear) was the impossibility of rallying to her in a moment of national crisis. She is not a woman who can draw the affection and trust of the nation. The idea of having to turn to her as a city or landmark lies in ruins is enough to make me vomit (I'll post some other time about my belief that she and her raping husband have no place in civil society much less at its pinnacle).

Anyway, national unity was vitally important in the days following 9/11, and Bush was wonderfully successful at uniting Americans around him. He awoke the latent patriotism in many of us and even helped some to rub the scales from our eyes and ditch our Democrat affiliation permanently. Bush's sincerity, sadness, resolve, trustworthiness, and love for America were all indubitable.

I shudder to think of the blow to national morale if another major attack takes place while Obama is in office. To have to submit to the leadership of this self-centered, self-referential, confused, anti-American, unfeeling narcissist at such a time would be insufferable. Insult . . . injury. To think of the man who has apologized to Europe for American "arrogance," "dismissiveness," and "derisiveness," who tells the Muslim world that America deserves no prominence, who elevates to the White House a woman who never felt proud of her country until her husband made a credible run for the presidency, who has snubbed our allies and military heroes, who has created cushy czarships for juveniles and otherwise promoted a bunch of racist, incompetent hacks -- to think of such a man dripping sanctimonious exhortations to examine our consciences and understand our enemies' anger, to watch him striding about with a solemn face pretending to be in charge, administering his "wisdom" and making his telepromptered speeches, aided in his obfuscations by the preposterous Robert Gibbs, the foul Rahm Emmanuel, and the smarmy Valerie Jarrett -- to think of this terrifies and saddens me. The bastard hasn't a clue who we are and he hates our freedom and prosperity, but he's the one to whom we would have to look for our lives and safety.

I hate to end on such a gloomy note, so I'll offer some practical advice should the worst happen: Ignore the bastard. Follow Sarah Palin instead, and marginalize him. He'll only be talking to his base anyway.

Project Runway Episode 12

Even Chris March could not muster a funny word about the final challenge of Project Runway. Inexcusably, Gordana was booted. "I don't know who Gordana is as a designer," protested Nina Garcia. "To not know at this point is a problem." Evidently so, but whose? If a designer is supposed to be knowable, then why were two of the judges first-timers for the season? As for Nina, her remark says more about her eye than it does about Gordana's knowability. What doesn't Nina "know" about these designs?

I skipped a good ten minutes of this episode, since this was the show where the psychological abuse was maximized. To intensify the suspense, each designer was both praised and picked on. They were then forced to plead their quality and deservingness, and to betray two other designers as those who should be left behind. (It was disguised as picking two who should go on to Bryant Park, but the real story is the cut.) It may be tough to keep watching Project Runway. Anyone know of any other good fashion shows? What's become of What Not To Wear lately?

I've discovered that Gordana's fashions retail in my own city. I can't afford them, but I intend to go look.

Thirteen dead, 30 wounded

I can't add anything to the commentary about the terrorist massacre at Ft. Hood. I'll just quote a few lines from Ralph Peters:

How could the Army allow an obviously incompetent and dysfunctional psychiatrist to treat our troubled soldiers returning from war? No officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Ft. Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.

An Islamist whacko is counseled for arguing with veterans who've been assigned to his care? And he's not removed from duty? The US Army's unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Ft. Hood. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him.

FLOTUS glamour

I strongly object to how Michelle Obama matched this particular outfit to its occasion -- a sleeveless, V-neck floral frock with chandelier earrings and green kitten heels, which she debuted for a posthumous Medal of Honor ceremony -- but her outfits per se speak glamour, beauty, and taste to me. She does a beautiful job with her god-given height and large frame. What uglifies Michelle physically for me is the way she deploys her face muscles, particularly her lower jaw. It's a window to her very ugly soul.

Hillary was a different case. She invented haggity and was abandoned by her husband early in her marriage. I think her dowdiness is a fair issue because she hates it (even as she perpetuates it), and it drives her desire for revenge on hard-working, virtuous people who are loved and happy. But Hillary didn't have to be a fat-kneed, cackling bitch who chose power and accordingly seated herself on her husband's semen-stained coattails. She has some sort of work ethic; she could have made herself over and become dainty and dangerous like divorcee Marcia Clark.

Back to Michelle, I think her pleasure in the wealth and adulation she owes to her husband's political star are keen indeed. It will be interesting to see what becomes of Michelle Antoinette if that star implodes.

Michelle Obama's rhetoric

Did I ever tell you that I've done graduate studies in Linguistics? Well, I have. Before that was a B.A. in English Literature, and after was years of developing and teaching classes in reading and English composition. I've spent many an hour analyzing successful and unsuccessful exposition and argument, which brings me to Michelle Obama.

During the presidential campaign and primaries, I studied her speeches for a blog I was maintaining. I watched hours of her on YouTube, transcribed many paragraphs. Due to my more-than-casual interest in these things, I entertained myself with a little discourse analysis.

Michelle's language is the classic cult-indoctrination style of fiery delivery and breathless leaping from one topic to another without letting the logical implications of one claim sink in before you’re off to the next one. (David Koresh was a master, ex-moonies describe being harangued the same way.) She madly mixes metaphors, abuses logical connectors, and charges along on a chain of non-sequiturs. There is no such thing as quoting her out of context, because there is no context; there is nothing in any passage of her speeches that sheds light on any other passage. It’s an attack on meaning, the replacement of rigorous argument with beautiful nonsense. Never mind the odiousness of her ideas; not one paragraph of her speeches held a shred of internal logic.

I believe this succeeded because of her delivery: florid intonation as well as body language that employs cocked knee joints, elbows, pelvis, fists, lower jaw, and eyebrows.

Michelle has long since changed her image and her message, and I have stopped listening. The merest glance shows that her interviews and speeches now are puff pieces. There may be something to learn in them, but it's not worth it for me. However, if she starts campaigning in her old vein again, I intend to pin her rhetoric to the wall and show just how illogical and stupid her demagoguery is.

Project Runway October 29

Christopher, the Runway Rasputin, has survived yet again -- this week at the expense of Logan.

The challenge was to create a companion piece for a previous design, but forget about that; the show's theme was calumny. The editors shot Logan's back as Irina and Althea stabbed it with whispered accusations. Irina's every eye-roll and slow-burn were lingered over in closeup. Subtitles clued us in as designers muttered insults about other designers. Charges of plagiarism and sewing-notion theft were thrown around. I wasn't convinced by any of it. The conflict is so forced that a model had to be called in to hiss along with Althea. I'm not impressed with the drama in this group, despite the producers' efforts.

We got a short bio of Gordana, who is 44 and looks much older. A crusty black and white photo of herself and her brother as children evokes the misery and struggle of Eastern Europe of many years ago. Her parents were Bosnian peasants, and it is something of a miracle, as she says, that she is where she is today. I wonder what she thinks of this country.

On the runway, her outfit flopped with the judges. Gordana, who has ever been rebuked for lacking confidence, responded firmly: "I like it." And then apologized for doing so. For god's sakes, woman, stop dipping your head as if the world is about to deal you a much-deserved beating. Heidi Klum is not any better than you. Stand up to her already! By the way, it's time to say something about Heidi's clothes. What the hell was she wearing during the runway show? Silver jeans hemmed at the knees, a dowdy Lands' End floral blouse, a black jacket with sparkles on the sleeves, and high heels? If a designer sent something like that down the runway, they'd be lectured to tears.

Carol Hannah made a sweet little cocktail dress that was supposed to have layers of translucent green in the skirt, but as usual the look was minced down the runway and back so quickly that it could have been a tutu. "The color is really beautiful," said guest judge Kerry Washington. Wish I could have seen it.

Christopher dug up every mistake he'd ever made, tacked them together, and blew up the whole mess with 30 yards of fabric. Yet another voluminous skirt and sleek top, yet another cascade of dark ruffles over light ruffles, and yet another thing at the back of the neck. I'm finding him distinctly un-adorable. I can scarcely understand how Logan's 80s staleness is supposed to be worse than Christopher's utter lack of novelty.

Previews of next week had the obligatory shot of Christopher sobbing into his hands. It's like Susan Lucci and the Emmies. Next time, we promise, next time . . .

The mind of Oprah (an open letter)

Here's a contradiction, Oprah. You have made a career of spilling your guts. In fact, you have founded an industry and created an audience of billions. Commanding this vast stage for many years, you have also promoted your favorite causes while pretty much staying out of politics -- until Barack Obama appeared. Since then, you have campaigned openly for him, done an admiring cover story on Michelle in "O" magazine, and traveled to Copenhagen with the Obamas to pitch Chicago for the 2016 Olympics. So it's pretty clear you still support the Obamas.

But there is nothing you care to share about the undeniable lies and betrayals that are screamingly obvious to many of Obama's troubled supporters. I'm not talking about vague changes of sentiment or interpretations of his performance. I'm talking about Bob Herbert, Clarence Page, Eugene Robinson, Phil Hendrie, thousands of gays and lesbians, hundreds of Daily Kos and Huffpo members, Rachel Maddow, Jonathan Turley, Paul Krugman, Andrew Sullivan, Marty Peretz, and others with specific complaints about specific betrayals and failings. The issues include unemployment, Obama's choice of advisors, GLBT rights, the economy, Israel, FISA, Guantanamo, detention at Bagram, prosecuting Bush and Cheney, releasing "torture" pix, the NEA, transparency, the public option, and others. (I've been following these reversals in a very unscientific way on my other blog, The Morning After.)

Oprah, your on-air revelations include your crack addiction, your menopause symptoms, and your eating disorders. So why not give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on this presidency? You proudly claimed some credit for pulling it off, and now Eric Holder charges Americans with being "cowards" about race. Michelle Obama tells a gold-medal lie about sitting on her father's lap to watch Carl Lewis in the Olympics. Anita Dunn names Mao Zedong as a favored political philosopher. Van Jones has resigned. Michelle is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on date nights. Gays and lesbians are disillusioned. Detroiters exclaimed "That's why we voted for him!" as they lined up with begging bowls for "Obama money." The deadline on Obama's pledge to meet personally with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea during the first year of his administration is doomed. I could go on and on. Maybe you feel that now's too early to weigh in, but by the time he gives his first State of the Union address, you should have formed an opinion or two.

You must have had something in mind when you decided the world needed Obama so badly that you had to speak up. What exactly was it? And how's it going?

Spill, sister. It's what you do.

Project Runway October 22

Unbelievable. The utterly lost Christopher survives at Nicolas's expense. Gordana makes a dress they all adore, then gets a lecture for not being confident enough. Irina gets bitchier, and wins the challenge.

The challenge this week was to take inspiration from a locale that inspires Michael Kors. The designers were given tourism-promo pix of exotic places that none of them had probably ever visited. St. Tropez? Palm Beach, Aspen, Santa Fe, Greece? Okay, Hollywood and New York were in there, but there's already been a movie costume challenge.

I didn't get Christopher's cheerleader skirt.

Why are women expected to walk around in kicky skirts this short? Here we go again:

I don't mind the look, but the practicality! I mean, underpants, anyone? Ditto tight skirts for that matter. I fear this is what happens when women are dressed by gay men. We're up on pedestals, we're not of this earth, we don't have periods, and our back muscles are impervious to six-inch heels. Althea's shorts made much more sense.

Nicolas had no use for his inspirational locale, which was Greece. "As I look at my outfit, I definitely do not see Greece in it," he said. "But a person could definitely wear it in Greece." The photo from which he was supposed to work showed a lovely dome overlooking a deep blue sea; he created something like dressy office, a perfectly wearable and pretty outfit consisting of a sheer white pieced blouse and slim grey pants with cunning horizontally pleated cuffs, accessorized with a necklace of fine chains and sophisticated high heels. It was denounced as "clothes," not "fashion." Heidi was baffled by the blouse because of its tight bodice but loose sleeves. What, just because there's one tight element he has to go whole unitard?

Guest judge was Milla Jovovich. No idea what she has to do with geography-based fashion. I've never seen a movie with her and I know nothing about her designs (she was introduced as a designer -- who knew?). She obviously didn't "get" the gig, because she complimented each design. As she waxed appreciative of Christopher's belt, Heidi came to the rescue with a compensatory insult. By the time they got around to Logan, who was last, Milla understood better and denounced his design heartily.

I caught the end of "Models of the Runway." Celine, the Asian one with a pixie cut, is out. I liked her look, especially as Nicolas's Ice Queen. The remaining models are all mousy brunettes with little to distinguish them -- except the Black one, obviously.

Oh, thaaat Chairman Mao

Let us now turn to the famous first sentence of Jung Chang's biography of Mao Zedong:

“Mao Tse-Tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world’s population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth-century leader."

Mao: The Unknown Story, co-authored by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, details Mao's career of revenge, theft, betrayal, back-stabbing, cruelty, misadventure, waste, recklessness, and other mayhem. The epic horror accumulates over hundreds of episodes and close views. Women who bore children on the Long March were forced to abandon their infants in villages the Communists had just ravaged. Entire harvests were stolen from farming communities to feed Mao's Red Army.

The Private Life of Chairman Mao, by Li Zhi-sui, was written by the man who attended Mao as a private physician for decades. Doctor Li gives an intimate portrait of Mao the man against the backdrop of the tragedy of modern Chinese history. Mao had a way of balancing an insatiable sexual appetite with terrible personal hygiene: "I wash myself in the bodies of women," he said. His suspicions and purges created such a state of fear among those in his circle that they required treatment for their resulting psychological disorders. Mao died in bed in a concrete bunker in Beijing, twelve days after a quarter million Chinese perished in an earthquake in the nearby city of Tangshan.

Mao's Hungry Ghosts, by Jasper Becker, tells the sickening story of Mao's "Great Leap Forward," in which Mao enlisted all Chinese in his ambition to overtake Great Britain in steel production and the U.S. in wheat production. He ordered the peasants to abandon farming methods that had worked for thousands of years and take up cockamamie practices that would supposedly increase agricultural yields. One Lysenkoesque scheme was to plant rice six feet deep in order to obtain six-foot stalks. Peasants multipled their normal labor to dig six-foot ditches, only to have nothing to eat come harvest time. As for the steel program, that would be accomplished by having forges in every back yard. There was a dearth of raw minerals to smelt, but the peasants still had production quotas. They met them by melting every doorknob, chopstick, pot, and scrap of metal they could get their hands on, which went into the forges and came out as worthless, low-quality ingots. To fuel the forges, they initially burned fences, doors, and furniture; when these were all consumed, the peasants went on to cut every tree, stick, and sapling in sight, thus setting in motion the desertification of China, a natural disaster that has been destroying arable land and filling the skies with sandstorms every year. The experiment ended at last, with 36 million dead of starvation. Chinese Communist officials could not hide 36 million corpses, but they have hidden the cause. Chinese today refer to this period as "The Three Years of Natural Disasters," under the impression that China was plagued by a coincidence of floods, fires, earthquakes, pests, freezes, and droughts that would make the god of the Old Testament jealous.

Life and Death in Shanghai is Nien Cheng's account of her persecution by the Communist regime. Her years of solitary confinement as a political prisoner by Mao's Red Guards were extended by her refusal to confess to crimes against the state. After she was released, she found that Chinese civil society was destroyed and no one felt safe from Mao's spies. The Chinese Communist Party had enlisted bossy, nosey old women to form intrusive "neighborhood committees" that supervised the speech, thought, associations, and household habits of every Chinese citizen. Nien Cheng eventually made her way to America and became a citizen in 1988, at the age of 73.

The males of the Left

also what passe's for a journalist.don't know if sanchez is a college grad tho,my bad

Juanita Broaddrick, I have not forgotten you (Part III)

AN OPEN LETTER TO HILLARY CLINTON, BY JUANITA BROADDRICK

'DO YOU REMEMBER?'

SUNDAY OCT 15, 2000

As I watched Rick Lazio's interview on Fox News this morning, I felt compelled to write this open letter to you, Mrs. Clinton. Brit Hume asked Mr. Lazio's views regarding you as a person and how he perceived you as a candidate. Rick Lazio did not answer the question, but I know that I can. You know it, too.

I have no doubt that you are the same conniving, self-serving person you were twenty-two years ago when I had the misfortune to meet you. When I see you on television, campaigning for the New York senate race, I can see the same hypocrisy in your face that you displayed to me one evening in 1978. You have not changed.

I remember it as though it was yesterday. I only wish that it were yesterday and maybe there would still be time to do something about what your husband, Bill Clinton, did to me. There was a political rally for Mr. Clinton's bid for governor of Arkansas. I had obligated myself to be at this rally prior to my being assaulted by your husband in April, 1978. I had made up my mind to make an appearance and then leave as soon as the two of you arrived. This was a big mistake, but I was still in a state of shock and denial. You had questioned the gentleman who drove you and Mr. Clinton from the airport. You asked him about me and if I would be at the gathering. Do you remember? You told the driver, "Bill has talked so much about Juanita", and that you were so anxious to meet me. Well, you wasted no time. As soon as you entered the room, you came directly to me and grabbed my hand. Do you remember how you thanked me, saying "we want to thank you for everything that you do for Bill". At that point, I was pretty shaken and started to walk off. Remember how you kept a tight grip on my hand and drew closer to me? You repeated your statement, but this time with a coldness and look that I have seen many times on television in the last eight years. You said, "Everything you do for Bill". You then released your grip and I said nothing and left the gathering.

What did you mean, Hillary? Were you referring to my keeping quiet about the assault I had suffered at the hands of your husband only two weeks before? Were you warning me to continue to keep quiet? We both know the answer to that question. Yes, I can answer Brit Hume's question. You are the same Hillary that you were twenty years ago. You are cold, calculating and self-serving. You cannot tolerate the thought that you will soon be without the power you have wielded for the last eight years. Your effort to stay in power will be at the expense of the state of New York. I only hope the voters of New York will wake up in time and realize that Hillary Clinton is not an honorable or an honest person.

I will end by asking if you believe the statements I made on NBC Dateline when Lisa Myers asked if I had been assaulted and raped by your husband? Or perhaps, you are like Vice-President Gore and did not see the interview.

Juanita Broaddrick
Arkansas

Project Runway October 15

Bob Mackie is still around and looking great. He's 69, which means he was something of a prodigy when he was creating looks for Cher and Carol Burnett many decades ago. The maestro himself was a guest star this week.

The challenge was to create a stage look for Christina Aguilera (guest judge #2), in the style of Mr. Mackie. The designers strolled around some of his gowns and got a pep talk from him on dressing divas. Make an outfit that's visible from the nosebleed section, something that pushes beyond the red carpet and glitzy Hollywood parties.

Here is a red carpet look created by Bob Mackie.


Here is Christina Aguilera going to a party.


"Push beyond" these looks, designers! Do something original and envelope-pushing instead.

Sure enough, Christopher's military-style coat over a corset-and-sparkle-panties combo was denounced as a "retread." He barely escaped outage. "Everything I've seen here has been seen and done before," said Nina Garcia.

"It's giving me cavewoman," said Christina hesitantly of Logan's dress. I'm not sure what's wrong with a little cavewoman considering the context. "It's a little bit hip and a little bit youthful," Heidi reluctantly allowed of his crotch-length, skin-tight satin animal print sheath lined with pink and accessorized with fur, chains, and boots.

I wonder how secure the judges actually are in their opinions, and whether any of them are ever reluctant to go first. One judge piles on a designer, then another piles on, then another. Same for the praise. Same for the middle-of-the-road opinions. Some of their opinions sound canned. "It was definitely impressive." "It's unflattering." "I think you took a chance."

Carol Hannah won for an ultra-glamorous, slinky, floor-length concoction that included every fabric, sparkle, and texture imaginable in the color black. Shirin lost for a slinky, floor-length concoction in black that was variously pronounced a witch costume, a prom dress, and a Carmen Miranda moment. I felt sorry when she cried and locked herself in a bathroom.

Is Irina's bitch shtick a put-on? It's certainly going over the top, whether it's the editors, the other designers, or Irina herself.

I don't watch Models of the Runway. Have you ever read or seen an interview with a smart model? Neither have I. They're walking hangers.

P.S. Chris March's Project Runway blog is incredibly fun. He goes into much greater detail than I do.

Juanita Broaddrick, I have not forgotten you (Part II)

Juanita Broaddrick, I have not forgotten you (Part I)

Full Transcript of NBC Dateline report on Juanita Broaddrick

She became known as Jane Doe Number 5. Her story was well known to independent counsel Ken Starr, to House impeachment managers, to Washington insiders and Capitol Hill reporters. A month ago, she gave an interview to NBC News correspondent Lisa Myers. Since then NBC News has been carefully investigating this story — combing through state records, court documents and newspapers, cross-checking dates and events, talking to more than 80 people, and repeatedly requesting information from the White House.

LAST WEEK, as NBC News continued its investigation, Jane Doe Number 5 went public with her extraordinary allegation — that she was sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton 21 years ago. To some this is an old and unprovable accusation that should never have been circulated to begin with. To others it’s a story that must be told. Is she to be believed? Or is Jane Doe Number 5 the latest weapon in a relentless political war against Bill Clinton?

Juanita Broaddrick: “It’s important to me to tell what happened. I don’t know how people are going to take this. I don’t know what they’re going to think after all these years and months why I’ve come forward.”

Read the rest.

Nobel Laureate Barack Hussein Obama

A mental exercise I've been engaging in since last Election Day is finding silver linings in the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. His winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, a decision apparently made by the Nobel Committee before he'd been in office a full month, serves as the latest call for some cerebral sit-ups.

Let us take as a self-evident truth that Obama's presidency will ultimately fail. I contend that this is as much a problem for everyone else as it is for him, since no Black hero of the Left is permitted to fail on his own merits; the discredit always redounds to the evil Right, which hath brought down yet another accomplished and honorable Black man. The Left will shoulder its share of the guilt, too. "He didn't fail us; we failed him." Oprah Winfrey's show, "What Happened?" will ask us to examine our consciences, not to consider whether Charles Krauthammer was ever right about anything.

The biggest mitigant against our future guilt is this: No one can say we ever denied Obama a chance to succeed. The American people bestowed upon him a fawning press, a liberal legislature, a forebearing predecessor (Bush) who has maintained the tradition of gentlemanly silence about his successor's performance, and an educational establishment that is enthusiastically enrolling the next generation in his personality cult. The larger world has generally agreed with all this and additionally idolized his gorgeous, fashion-conscious wife. Racism-hunters on the Left are reduced to discovering "microaggression" in their neighbors, reading cannily between the lines of the most innocuous remarks, deducing racism where it can't be directly proved, and flaunting a few idiotic, race-based swipes at Obama from heretofore unknown (and swiftly fired) individuals as typical of the entire conservative movement. I also suspect that most if not all of the silliest, most offensive messages displayed at anti-big-government gatherings are actually the work of leftist plants who aim to tar Obama's critics.

Now comes the Nobel Peace Prize. I can't think of any greater coupling of reward and unworthiness than this, unless the Jews proclaim him the Messiah.

And there gleams the silver lining in the cloud of adolescent adulation that befogs the minds of the Nobel Committee, for it adds weight to the question: Upon Obama's inevitable failure, how can his apologists and worshippers possibly claim that the world and the American people never gave him a chance?

(The only answer I can dream up -- and I just may be writing a thesis statement for many a Black Studies major here -- is that from the beginning he was carefully selected by a vast, right-wing conspiracy, elevated to early, undeserved success, kept away from controversies where decisive statements could come back to bite him, dropped into office right after the previous adminstration deliberately effed up as much of the country as it possibly could in anticipation of Obama's succession, protected by a (mostly White!) press that was in on it all along, surrounded by fakes in Congress who ran as Democrats but who were actually Republican racists in disguise, and dealt a coup de grace in the form of another terrorist attack that was the follow-on to the one Bush engineered on 9/11.)

The story of Mary Magdalen

You don't need to be a believer to hold Jesus in some awe. I am not a believer, but the story of Mary Magdalen is one that fills me with awe.

Picture it: the Middle East, 2000 years ago. A crowd of angry, armed villagers has a terrified woman surrounded. She's sinned, and they're determined to punish her.

I can imagine no force of human nature that is at once more combustible and less resistible than the blind, irrational, snorting, self-righteous, bloodlusting misogyny of a mob that has a victim in its gnarled hands and is about to consummate its collective, pre-orgasmic hatred upon her. I am only the most casual of anthropologists, but the torture of women who sin has been so imaginatively and consistently ritualized in the primitive cultures I've glanced at (a few of the advanced ones, too) that it truly puts me in touch with man's capacity for perversion and evil.

Anyway, our terrified woman is about to meet her death at the hands of an angry, rock-throwing crowd, when . . . a stranger appears. What does this stranger do? Speed up in his Batmobile and snatch her to safety? Divert the crowd by pointing out an interesting cloud formation? Scare them with a magic trick? No. He talks them out of it -- not with threats, blackmail, the promise of another victim, or some equivalent substitute -- but by appealing to their better nature.

We don't know how the whole speech went down, but the gist of it was, "Let the sinless one among you cast the first stone." The crowd gave up their day's entertainment, and Mary Magdalen became a follower of Jesus from that moment forward.

Pretty awe-inspiring.

Project Runway October 8

I never watch the "You're Out" moment of Project Runway; I simply note who's missing as I follow the series from week to week. I can't stand the psychological abuse or Heidi Klum's sadistic relish every time she pronounces those two words, which she contrives to do at several points during each show.

This week's challenge was to remake bridal gowns into outfits that their divorced owners could wear in pursuit of new mates and new lives; the owners of the gowns themselves served as the models. A shrug and a cheer for the utilitarianism of this challenge -- but the results were not very satisfying. Froth, lace, and acetate lining are things to be overcome, not indulged. Moreover, ordinary women simply cannot compare to tall, slender, imaginatively coiffed girls strutting out beautiful clothes.

The runway show itself was ridiculously short and catchily shot and therefore hard to judge on teevee -- why on earth is this always so? Gordana won for a dress that was made entirely out of the lining of her (un)model's gown. I couldn't see much of the color or detail to judge whether I liked it. The losers were painfully obvious, however. The lovable Christopher created something that looked like a crumpled plastic bag, and the equally lovable family man Epperson took an ugly wedding dress and turned it into an ugly, shorter wedding dress. Epperson is out.

The oddly-scarved and curt-mannered Irina is beginning to grate. Nicolas was refreshingly disgusted with his creation. There is no forgiveness in this pixie-faced devil; he is not even humble in his sense of inadequacy, but exuberantly disdainful of his own failure. Back to odd scarves, I must ask: How is it that these incredibly talented people style themselves so badly? Most of them need to be on "What Not To Wear." The only Project Runway designer I know of who lived her vision was Kenley Collins of Season 5, who models some of her own fashions on her website.

The challenge for next week is to dress Christina Aguilera. She got profile, but is she supposed to have taste? Type her name into Google Images. I say it's a freak show.