Obama’s Speech on Race; Convincing?
Current mood: contemplative
Category: News and Politics

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell.html

Obama’s speech By Thomas Sowell

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Did Senator Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia convince people that he is still a viable candidate to be President of the United States, despite the adverse reactions to statements by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright?

The polls and the primaries will answer that question. The great unasked question for Senator Obama is the question that was asked about President Nixon during the Watergate scandal; What did he know and when did he know it?

Although Senator Obama would now have us believe that he is shocked, shocked, at what Jeremiah Wright said, that he was not in the church when pastor Wright said those things from the pulpit, this still leaves the question of why he disinvited Wright from the event at which he announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination a year ago.

Either Barack Obama or his staff must have known then that Jeremiah Wright was not someone whom they wanted to expose to the media and to the media scrutiny to which that could lead.

Why not, if it is only now that Senator Obama is learning for the first time, to his surprise, what kinds of things Jeremiah Wright has been saying and doing?

No one had to be in church the day Wright made his inflammatory and obscene remarks to know about them.

The cable news journalists who are playing the tapes of those sermons were not there. The tapes were on sale in the church itself. Obama knew that because he had bought one or more of those tapes.

But even if there were no tapes, and even if Obama never heard from other members of the church what their pastor was saying, he spent 20 years in that church, not just as an ordinary member but also as someone who once donated $20,000 to the church.

There was no way that he didn’t know about Jeremiah Wright’s anti-American and racist diatribes from the pulpit.

Someone once said that a con man’s job is not to convince skeptics but to enable people to continue to believe what they already want to believe.

Accordingly, Obama’s Philadelphia speech — a theatrical masterpiece — will probably reassure most Democrats and some other Obama supporters. They will undoubtedly say that we should now "move on," even though many Democrats have still not yet moved on from George W. Bush’s 2000 election victory.

Like the Soviet show trials during their 1930s purges, Obama’s speech was not supposed to convince critics but to reassure supporters and fellow-travelers, in order to keep the "useful idiots" useful.

Best-selling author Shelby Steele’s recent book on Barack Obama ("A Bound Man") has valuable insights into both the man and the circumstances facing many other blacks — especially those who were never part of the black ghetto culture but who feel a need to identify with it for either personal, political or financial reasons.

Like religious converts who become more Catholic than the Pope, such people often become blacker-than-thou. For whatever reason, Barack Obama chose a black extremist church decades ago — even though there was no shortage of very different churches, both black and white — in Chicago.

Some say that he was trying to earn credibility on the ghetto streets, to facilitate his work as a community activist or for his political career. We may never know why.

But now that Barack Obama is running for a presidential nomination, he is doing so on a radically different basis, as a post-racial candidate uniquely prepared to bring us all together.

Yet the past continues to follow him, despite his attempts to bury it and the mainstream media’s attempts to ignore it or apologize for it.

Shelby Steele depicts Barack Obama as a man without real convictions, "an iconic figure who neglected to become himself."

Senator Obama has been at his best as an icon, able with his command of words to meet other people’s psychic needs, including a need to dispel white guilt by supporting his candidacy.

But President of the United States, in a time of national danger, under a looming threat of nuclear terrorism? No.

Currently reading : They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (Phoenix Books) By Milton Mayer Release date: 19 May, 1966

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Norah Vincent: Why I Left the Left Behind
Current mood: thankful

I left the Left behind --- and the Politics of Victimhood  

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- "I GET two kinds of patients," said a specialist I once consulted, "the ones who get upset when I tell them they have multiple sclerosis, and the ones who get upset when I tell them they don't."

Every year, when the MS Society holds its annual fund-raisers, I remember that doctor, not so much because I've since been diagnosed with MS, but because I've stopped being secretly happy about it.

The doc had been right. I saw my diagnosis as an opportunity. A juicy, Jesse Jackson kind of event, supremely exploitable for all its tragic worth. Not only did I have a degenerative disease; I also had one that would disable me. What could be better? After all, it's not every day that you get to join a protected minority, to call yourself compadre to a whole new cadre of the oppressed.

Naturally, at the time, I'd never have admitted as much, not even to myself. But back then there was a lot I wouldn't have admitted, for the simple reason that I was a registered Democrat. That was six years ago.

Since then, I've learned a thing or two about myself and about the pitfalls of identity politics. Because for me, and I suspect for many people, one of the hardest things about coping with MS has been resisting the temptation to use it as an excuse.

The first thing most people say to themselves when they're diagnosed with a serious disease is, "Why me?" It's a knee-jerk human response, and I was no exception. It was the easiest way to make the best of a bad situation --- the idea being that if I had to be sick for the rest of my life, I should at least get a little martyrdom out of it. That, and a trump card in every argument I'd ever have with anyone, and a turbo guilt trip for my parents when it was convenient and a cause for everything that had ever gone wrong in my life.

At the time, my career was in the toilet. I was languishing in a menial desk job, blaming my lack of advancement on everything from the corporate system and spiteful bosses to fluorescent lighting, instead of blaming it on my own laziness and lack of initiative.

When the doctor told me I had MS, I suddenly felt the weight of my own and everyone else's expectations lift off my shoulders. So this was why I hadn't done better on the SATs, I thought. This was why I'd dropped out of grad school. This was why I'd been passed over for a promotion. I was handicapped, and for people like me, the world was a hostile place.

Hence the beauty of support groups. I went, and suddenly, I belonged. Sympathy abounded. Solidarity took me in. I understood why people dug being marginalized. You got a gripe and a cheerleading squad in the bargain. But after hearing everyone's sob stories about how their lives had been ruined by fate, I started to feel like I was at a "Take Back the Night" march or a "Fat Is a Lesbian Issue" meeting. I began to understand the common denominator of identity politics -- empowerment through victimhood -- and why so many people were attracted to it. It was so easy, and it felt so good.

Over time, I realized that neoradicals were cheering this on for political gain. The left had become little more than a meeting place for balkanized groups of discontents, all bent on extracting their quota of public shame and their slice of the entitlement pie. All of them blaming their personal failures on their race, their sex, their sexual orientation, their disability, their socioeconomic status and a million other things.

Everything but themselves. Their refrain, too, was, "Why me?" And the more I heard it, the more I started to think: Why not you? Everyone has problems, and this is yours. Now get over it and get on with it. When I learned to say that to myself, I left the left behind.

It took MS to teach me an invaluable lesson, one that many people think has made me a conservative, but which I think has simply made me an adult: The personal is not political. Quite the contrary, the political is personal.

-- Norah Vincent, Jewish World Review (06/27/01)

Currently listening : Blown To Smithereens: The Best Of The Smithereens By The Smithereens Release date: 04 April, 1995

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From hard-left to center; a personal journey
Current mood: Pragmatic
Category: Pragmatic News and Politics

The following political survey was recently posted on the myspace group "Recovering Liberals." My responses to it:

*When did you start reconsidering your world view?

ALTHOUGH I'D GRADUALLY BEEN DOING SO FOR YEARS, RETURNING TO THE LEFTY "REALITY-FREE" BASTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION REALLY PUT THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE...THE WRITINGS OF C. HITCHENS, T. SOWELL, C. PAGLIA, D. HOROWITZ AND OTHERS ALSO MADE AN IMPACT

*When was the moment you "got it"?

NOT ONE MOMENT, AS STATED IT WAS FAIRLY INCREMENTAL, YET IN SAYING THIS, I DO RECALL READING THE QUOTE "COMMUNISM IS FASCISM WITH A HUMAN FACE"  WHICH REALLY FORCED ME TO STARE INTO THE SUN, SO TO SPEAK

*Dumbest thing you thought as a liberal?

(NOTE; I WAS NOT MERELY "LIBERAL" BUT ACTUALLY, A HARDCORE LEFTIST) NOT PROUD TO SAY I HAD MANY, HARD TO CHOOSE...BUT A FEW MIGHT INCLUDE MY IDEAS ABOUT HOW ALL WARFARE OUTSIDE OF SELF-DEFENSE WAS INVARIABLY WRONG (AGAINST PRE-EMPTIVE FIRST-STRIKE, ETC), UNETHICAL, ESSENTAILLY EVIL, WHEN IN REALITY DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE FACE OF ONGOING ATROCITIES IS FAR MORE EVIL...VIEWING REPUBLICANS/CONSERVATIVES STEREOTYPICALLY AS BIGOTED, SELFISH, MEAN-SPIRITED...NOT RECOGNIZING BASIC ECONOMIC REALITIES - OF HOW LIBERAL POLICIES FREQUENTLY HURT THE POOR, THE WORKING-CLASS, AFRO-AMERICANS, ETC

 *Liberal stuff you still love?

AS A MUSICIAN RAISED ON UNDERGROUND MUSIC, ADMITEDLY I'M STILL INTO A LOT OF THE SAME LEFTY PUNK I GREW UP WITH, WHILE RECOGNIZING THE NAIVETTE OF SOME OF THE LYRICS, IDEAS, ETC...IN FACT I STILL IDENTIFY WITH THE SPIRIT OF PUNK ROCK (PRO-INDIVIDUALITY, D.I.Y. ATTITUDE, GENERAL SKEPTICISM OF "OFFICIAL" DOGMA OR MAINSTREAM THINKING) AND LOVE THE MUSIC AS MUCH AS EVER.

 *What parts of conservatism still makes you cringe?

ALTHOUGH YOU'LL CERTAINLY FIND THIS TRAIT AMONGST LEFTIES TOO (ALBEIT IN FAR DIFFERENT FORMS), I LOATHE HOLIER-THAN-THOU MORAL EXHIBITIONISTS WHO INCESSENTLY BROWBEAT OTHERS AND TELL THEM HOW TO LIVE - AS IF THEY HAD THE ONE RIGHT WAY OF LOOKING AT THINGS....FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS OBSESSED WITH SEX OUTSIDE MARRIAGE, ABORTION, HOMOSEXUALITY AND HELLFIRE, HELLBENT ON FORCING THEIR BELIEFS UPON OTHERS...WEALTHY ELITIST COUNTRY CLUB TYPES....ECONOMIC DARWINISTS/HARDCORE LIBERTARIANS WHO BELIEVE IN COMPLETELY GUTTING EXISTING SAFETY NETS FOR THE POOR, THE WEAK, THE SICK AND THE ELDERLY...

*Favorite public conservative?

THOMAS SOWELL!

*Least favorite public conservative?

SEAN HANNITY (SIMPLISTIC, CLICHED IDEAS, UNORIGINAL THINKER), PAT ROBERTSON (GIVES A BAD NAME TO CHRISTIANS AND CONSERVATIVES)

*How about the most disappointing?

GEORGE W. BUSH; REALLY SOLD OUT ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, ATTEMPTED TO MANIPULATE THE PUBLIC AND HIS BASE REGARDING DETAILS OF HIS POLICY (TROOPS ON THE BORDER, NO AMNESTY, ETC)

*Funniest part about liberal culture?

PC EXTREMISM, BLATANT HYPOCRISY, LIMOUSINE LIBERALS, TRUSTFUND REVOLUTIONARIES, WHITE GUILT, ARROGANT INSULATED UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS PROTECTED BY TENURE WHO DESPITE THEIR ESTABLISHMENT TRAPPINGS FASHION THEMSELVES AS "RADICAL" AND EXPECT OTHERS TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY

*How about the most frustrating?

IT'S INABILITY TO REFORM OR EVEN RECONSIDER CERTAIN DISTASTEROUS SOCIAL/ECONOMIC POLICIES, ITS FREQUENT INABILITY TO NOT VIEW ALL CONSERVATIVES/CONSERVATIVE IDEAS WITH DISTRUST/FEAR/SUSPICION/DISDAIN

*Still talk politics with liberal/left friends?

WITH A FEW OF THE MORE TOLERANT ONES I DO, THOUGH MANY OTHERS HAVE CERTAINLY WRITTEN ME OFF AS "BRAINWASHED" (SO MUCH FOR "CELEBRATING DIVERSITY"), AN ALLEGATION WHICH MAKES IT FAIRLY DIFFICULT TO HAVE A RESPECTFUL, RATIONAL EXCHANGE OF IDEAS

NOTE: I ESSENTIALLY VIEW MYSELF AS A CENTRIST/MODERATE, NOT AN ACTUAL CONSERVATIVE... SOMEONE WHO ACKNOWLEDGES SOUND, REASONED CONSERVATIVE IDEAS EVEN WHEN I DISAGREE WITH THEM.

Currently reading : Inside the Hermit Kingdom By Sun-Kyung Yi Release date: September, 1997

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A Defense of Western Science:
Current mood: determined
Category: News and Politics

"Being pro-science is one of the hardest things you can do in show business - or in California, for that matter. Which is very strange, because it was science that, oh, cured polio. I could list many others - but isn't that enough? I've heard it all, western medicine doesn't work and we should listen more to poverty and disease-stricken aboriginal witch doctors and new age herbalists and practitioners of Fung Shui. But I'm sorry, did they hear me? We cured polio. What more do you want? Your herbalism has done jack; we cured polio. And guess what? It cures polio even if you don't believe in it. So those post-modernists who go on about abhorring organized religion should stop talking about needing some sort of faith for their shit to work. Our shit works even if you can't read and believe only in voodoo.

- Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller), 1989, on modern science  

Currently reading : Ethnic America: A History By Thomas Sowell Release date: February, 1983

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Film review: "Hostel"
Current mood: nauseated
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Perhaps I'm missing something.  I don't consider myself to be particularly  "lightweight" when it comes to viewing horror flicks, yet in this case, I actually found watching this film deeply disturbing on many levels. Case in point; "Hostel" portrayed some of the darkest, sickest, creepiest, most chilling images I've ever witnessed on the big screen. What made it all the more disturbing was that the premise of the storyline was actually fairly plausible. With the collaspse of the former Soviet Union, large pockets of eastern Europe have seriously suffered during the turbulent, uneven economic transition period. Crime, corruption and illegal activities of all kinds have spiraled, particularly the organized, underground variety. When three naive, middle-class young men (vacationing backpackers in Amsterdam) are deceptively lured to a small Slovakian village in search of beautiful, seductive, exotic women, they soon realize that there is nothing very abstract about the concept of Hell...that something perhaps far worse exists, beneath one of the darkest, most godforsaken corners of planet Earth. The most cynical, brutal type of inhumanity is personified in this film, a place where even the tiniest spark of love and compassion has long been extinguished, where any ray of hope has been stifled and crushed...a dystopian shadowland where evil reigns a 1000 years.

Needless to say, this film is not recommended for a general audiance. Originally I did not intend to watch it, but arrived late to the theatre and unfortunately it was the only film that hadn't started. Regardless, from the newspaper's one-line description, it was my understanding that the picture was merely a harrowing suspense-type thriller. It was all that yes, along with a 150 gallons of genuine blood spitting out at the audiance onto every aisle and row. If you must watch this film, do so at your own peril, and if you enjoy it more than a little, I shudder at your inner-psyche and will likely keep my distance...      

Currently listening : Selected Scenes from the End of the World By London After Midnight Release date: 14 December, 1998

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Gerardo Sandoval for President!
Current mood: amused
Category: News and Politics

Tonight I did something that I seldom get the chance to do these days; I watched television. As I scrolled the various news channels for a fast-food update on what was supposedly happening in the world, all-too-predictably I found several channels stuck like glue on the recent pellet gun incident of Vice President Dick Cheney...click. I then turned to the Fox News Channel where I found liberal Democrat news commentator Alan Colmes exchanging words with San Francisco City Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval; it was genuinely quite a hoot. Sandoval actually stated on national television that the U.S. didn't need any military whatsoever - no armed forces, nada  - since evidently all it seems to accomplish (and I paraphrase) is illegal imperialist invasions and whatnot. "I don't think we should have a military...what good has it done us in the past five years...if the United States did not have a military, all-in-all we'd be in much, much better shape."  He repeated this view several more times so as not mistake what he was actually stating. Colmes seemed genuinely surprised, and although I wasn't (after all, I am a UC grad), I still thought to myself, "Who the hell IS this guy???" Well after a short internet search, the picture of who I was listening to gained needed context:

* This is the same City Supervisor who voted for San Francisco taxpayers to pay for the sex-change operations of city employees.

* This is an individual who is so politically-correct that he considers the term "illegal immigrant" a racial slur "as bad as the 'n' word," intentionally meant to demean Hispanics.

* While discussing the makeup of the City's Rent Board, Sandavol blurted out that he did not want the members of the Board to end up like the San Francisco Fire department where the list of employees reads "like the Dublin phone book." (S.F. Examiner, 07/10/02 - Frank Gallagher pg. A-9). While Sandoval denies he ever made such a statement, John Hanley, President of the S.F. Fire Fighters Union said he couldn't believe his ears, especially because the SF Fire Department is "the most diverse fire department in the country."

* Sandoval evidently is highly selective on what groups he thinks it's ok to poke fun at or insult. When campaigning for *YES* on the sex-change vote (see above), he mentioned to the crowd about a huge settlement the city had just paid to 52 big corporations. Sandoval then suggested, among other things, that outraged San Franciscans journey to Marin (a small wealthy town across the Golden Gate Bridge) to picket the CEO's kids' bar mitzvahs. ("Behind the Sex-Change Vote" by Gabriel Roth, SF Confidential 05/02/01)

* Surprise, surprise, Gerardo Sandoval is an attorney by profession, politician by trade, though I'm sure he'd just assume be running at the top of the ticket for the Pansexual Peace Party in 2008. Ergo, we should all stay tuned; perhaps Hillary's got some stiff competition from the left afterall.

Just one more example illustrating that one never knows what they'll find in a democracy, no matter how absurd.

Currently listening : Essential By The Divinyls Release date: 10 September, 1991

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Feeling alien8ed, can't relate?
Current mood: contemplative

Feeling alien8ed, can't relate?

As if the whole world's out of sync? Like you're diagonally parked in a parallel universe???

Currently listening : Metamatic By John Foxx Release date: 11 September, 2001

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Psychic vampires out for blood:
Current mood: pensive

Ain't life a bitch - weeding out all the fakes, flakes and worse? Though over time my personal instincts have significantly sharpened, upon initial introduction I still find myself occasionally duped by individuals who early on present themselves as something they, in retrospect, are clearly not (ethical, stable, tolerant, fair, etc.). Although it makes perfect sense why such people might first attempt to portray themselves in such fraudulent/flattering light, as individuals we must therefore examine whether or not our own internal bullshit detectors are actually in decent working order AND, very important, turned to the correct "on" position.

As is often stated, life in relative terms is an incredibly short span of years. Ergo, such careless errors in judgement can certainly be viewed as colossal when recognizing how much time and energy can be wasted when dealing with such ubiquitous psychic vampires. My only advice is to look both ways before crossing this harrowing hellbound highway, then proceed with substantial doses of caution and wisdom.       

Currently listening : The Lords of the New Church By The Lords of the New Church Release date: 08 April, 2003

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Walk the walk or shut the hell up:
Current mood: indescribable

"Some of the most vocal critics of the way things are being done are people who have done nothing themselves, and whose only contributions to society are their complaints and moral exhibitionism." - Thomas Sowell

Perhaps it's just me, but the older I get, the more I find it annoying to listen to others constantly sermonize and wax self-righteous over the various issues of the day. Either do something about it or leave it alone, ok? And while we're at it, what makes you think your sactimonious opinions are so goddamn important anyway??? What's that, you think that the masses are in dire need of ethical guidance and enlightenment by their elite betters? Oh yeah, really? Well guidance this;

Here's a pin, now go deflate your ego I'm not impressed.

Currently listening : Living in Darkness By Agent Orange Release date: 10 November, 1992

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My Top 40 Playlist:
Category: Music

Aeons ago I dj'd my own radio show and someone recently asked me what my playlist might include now. So here it is, a relative sample of some tracks I might submit - not necessarily my favorite songs of all time - but some buried treasures nonetheless:

The Alleycats - "Escape From Planet Earth"

No Alternative - "Make Guns Not Love"

Teenage Jesus & the Jerks - "Little Orphans"

Pete Shelley - "I Don't Know What It Is"

Romeo Void - "Not Safe"

The Descendents - "My World"

Social Distortion - "Moral Threat"

Debbie Harry - "End of the Run"

The Nuns - "Suicide Child"

Bad Religion - "Land of Competition"

X-Ray Spex - "I-D-E-N-T-I-T-Y"

The Go Go's - "Screaming"

The Ramones - "We Want the Airwaves"

Lords of the New Church - "Bad Timing"

Anne Clark - "Self-Destruct"

The Adolescents - "Who is Who"

Concrete Blonde - "Dance Along the Edge"

The Germs - "Land of Treason"

Adam Ant - "Desperate But Not Serious"

Christian Death - "Deathwish"

The Au Pairs - "Come Again"

Code of Honor - "Code of Honor"

The Weirdos - "Why Do You Exist?"

Tones On Tails - "Lions"

Philip Glass - "Koyaanisqatsi "

The Runaways - "Dead End Justice"

The Pist - "Ideas Are Bulletproof"

Agent Orange - "Everything Turns Grey"

The Pretenders - "The Adultress"

X - "The Unheard Music"

John Foxx - "Underpass"

The Frigidettes - "Turmoil"

London After Midnight - "Your Best Nightmare"

Moral Crux - "Heart On Trial"

Johnny Cash - "Hurt"

The Proletariat - "Ten Years"

The Slits - "Number One Enemy"

John Cooper Clark - "Health Fanatic"

Fluffy - "Technicolour Yawn"

Girlschool - "The Hunter"

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Ever been hated for something you're not?

"The best obituary a man can have is that the people who knew him loved him, even if those who didn't know him hated him." - Thomas Sowell

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Sowell and Wilde on know-it-alls:

"Nobody knows even 10 percent of it all." - Thomas Sowell

"I'm not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde

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My shit list, did you make it?

Now that I've caught yer attention, this isn't exactly a shit list, but instead, more like a hate list, or at least a list of things I intensely dislike. So without further ado, here goes...

FALSE SMILES, FALSE WORDS, FALSE MODESTY, FALSE HOPE, SYCOPHANTS, NAME-DROPPERS, CORRUPTION, ARROGANCE, KNOW-IT-ALLS, HALLMARK GREETING CARDS, TV SITCOMS, CANNED LAUGHTER, CLICHES & CLICHED THOUGHT, COOKIE CUTTER IDEAS, IDENTITY POLITICS, WHITE SUPREMACY/BLACK SUPREMACY/LATINO SUPREMACY, FAKE FRIENDS, SANCTIMONIOUS HYPOCRITES, CULTURAL RELATIVITY, ELITISM, INTELLECTUAL ASSUMTIONS, ANTI-PORN FEMINISM, MISANDRY (look it up!), ACADEMIC JARGON, LIMOUSINE LIBERALS, TRUST-FUND REVOLUTIONARIES, RACE HUSTLERS, RACE BAITORS, GROUP IDENTITY, SUPERHEROS, HYENAS, ANNOYINGLY HAPPY PEOPLE, PETTY GOSSIP, SLANDER, LIBEL, LIES (ESP ONES INTENTIONALLY MEANT TO HURT OTHERS), BACKSTABERS, RIGID STEREOTYPES, HARDCORE IDEOLOGUES, INTELLECTUAL INTOLERANCE, WHITE-GUILT, ETHNIC HATRED AND BIGOTRY OF ALL KINDS, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, POST-STRUCTURALISM, FASCISM, TOTALITARIANISM, EXTREMISM, RELIGIOUS FANATICISM (BE IT MUSLIM, CHRISTIAN OR WHATNOT), ARGUMENT BASED PRIMARILY ON EMOTION, DILETTANTES, DEMOGOGUES, DISTORTION, DECEPTION, THOUGHT POLICE, THOUGHT CONTROL, LANGUAGE POLICE, INFLEXIBLE BUREAUCRATS/BUREAUCRACY, RACIAL PROFILING, EGOISTS, HERO WORSHIP, CULTS OF PERSONALITY, HERD MENTALITY, UNIVERSITY TENURE AND INsinCERITY OF EVERY DAMN KIND...

There's still more to purge from my system, ergo, this entree's essentially a work in progress...check back for con't updates! 

7:02 PM - 7 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Sowell on "higher" education today:

"Few things are more dangerous than articulate superficiality. Glib demogogues have been the curse of the 20th century and tens of millions of human beings have paid with their lives for the heady visions and clever talk of political egoists. Yet the danger is not that a particular (student) will follow in the footsteps of Lenin, Hitler or Mao. The danger is that great numbers of people will never know what it is to know, as distinguished from sounding off. They will be sitting ducks for the demogogues of their times." - Thomas Sowell

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Paglia on I-D-E-N-T-I-T-Y:

"Stop imposing the heavy burden of identity on people. Just let them live and breathe! I feel that life should be an art form. It should not be a factory assembly-line." - Camille Paglia

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