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Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II (Head of the Commonwealth, Lord High Admiral, Supreme Governor of the Church of England aka Defender of the Faith, Lord of Mann,Paramount Chief of Fiji,Duke of Lancaster and Duke of Normandy, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces of many of her Realms) recently visited the White House, and its Bimbo in Chief (aka George W. Bush). Grand Poobah George greeted her Maj with the suggestion that the queen had visited America in 1776, making her a sprightly 231 years old. Rumor has it that George Bush was drunk as a skunk when he greeted her Majesty. What the White House resident and frat boy extraordinaire had meant to say, after the Queen corrected him by saying sotto voce, "Wrong year", that her Highness had visited in 1976 for the bicentennial festivities. Later, Mrs. Bush made her own gaff, saying that she had attended a formal dinner given by President Bush senior in 1993. Bill Clinton was President from 1993 to 2001.
The dinner was meant to reciprocate for Her Majesty's hospitality that hosted the President in November 2003. During that visit, Bush's helicopters used the Royal Gardens as a helipad and destroyed many rare plants.The Bush communications staff also ruined many expensive furnishings with the high tech links that the Bush entourage fitted around the palace. The Bush administration did not reimburse the Royal family for the damage and the British government was forced to take up the tab.
Please feel free to stop by my Commonwealth British Columbia home any time, Your Majesty. I'll remember your correct age and serve tea. And we won't hurt the flowers.
Technorati Tags:Queen Elizabeth II
David W. Logsdon had already killed a man in 1981 before he went on his murderous Kansas City rampage.
Logsdon killed Steven J. Foster in 1981, leaving two children without a father. Initially, Logsdon lied about the killing by saying that Foster had committed suicide with a gun but later Logsdon changed his story to say that he had a fistfight with Foster and that Logsdon acted in self-defence. There were no charges brought.
Technorati Tags:guns,kansas city,steven j. foster
The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, H.R. 1592, has passed in the House. You can read my opinion of the legislation.
The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act is necessary because still in the American government there are hicks like Representative Ted Poe of Texas (but of course!) who quotes KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest to chastise Democrats about the war in Iraq. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate general who founded the KKK and who was guilty of war crimes during the Civil War.
Technorati Tags:disability rights,hate speech,nathan bedford forrest ,religious right ,ted poe
This is becoming more stupid by the day. Police arrested a Fresno college student,Jonquel Brooks, a 19-year-old freshman and criminology major at California State University,for killing one man, Brant Daniels, 19 and wounding two others over a Sony Playstation game console. Jonquel Brooks was accused of stealing the Playstation when his roommates confronted him over the theft.
The Playstation is just a damn toy. I don't understand the frenzy that accompanies the latest release of a gaming device. This is the same silliness that used to attach itself to Nike shoes. One might as well go flush the money down the loo, considering the nonesense that proceeds a game machine announcement. A Playstation or Gameboy or whatever is certainly not worth killing or dying.
Technorati Tags:guns,playstation
The interview with Ms. Debbie turned out to be a bust for ABC News. There were no big names for Brian Ross to out and there was also tragedy in the show. One of those named in the court filings had hanged herself because she was about to go on trial for prostitution, irrespective of what was in Palfrey's telephone records. Furthermore, Mr. Ross exercised humane judgment by not naming a naval academy instructor who worked for Palfrey and who, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, would have faced court martial.
However, the commentary that I have made about the religious right and their ignoring the indiscretions of their own sect still are valid. If someone like Randall Tobias is on a call-girl telephone list (and one would have to be naive to think that some of those women did not go beyond just massage), and he is promoting chastity and fidelity with the approval of evangelicals, then there is something hypocritical about the Religious Right.
Technorati Tags: brian ross ,deborah jeane palfrey,religious right
Hi, you may have noticed the funky spelling on my blogs. No, I'm not illiterate. I am using Canadian English for my blogs. When in Rome, or in this case the Great White North, don't be a hoser and write as the Canucks do, eh? It's a beauty way to go...
Technorati Tags:bob and doug mckenzie,canada,great white north
The Religious Right wants George W. Bush to veto the anti-hate speech law that has just been passed by the House. The evangelicals believe that the law will criminalize free speech about their aversion to homosexuality. In fact, the law will halt speech that directly leads to violence against people based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability. The law budgets ten billion dollars over the next two years to help local law enforcement, and authorizes federal authorities to participate in resolution of hate crimes. There is nothing wrong with this legislation because keeping society civil is the role of the government. Advocating violence toward anyone that causes unlawful acts based on race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability disturbs the peace of society.
Just look at what happened during the Third Reich where the rhetoric against disabled people led to thousands of disabled people being imprisoned and killed in places such as Hartheim Castle in Austria and the Hadamar Hospital in Wiesbaden Germany. What does the Religious Right want in promoting a veto of hate speech laws? Eugenics? Gas chambers? To play the devil's advocate (and I would never advocate any such violence), if the Religious Right doesn't like hate speech laws, they might as well send the hard-core Christians in wheelchairs to be euthanised first.
Morally, George W. Bush and his evangelical cohorts should not be proud of their veto of hate speech laws because negating such legislation affects those, the disabled, who deserve the same rights, the same legal protections against invective speech, and the same freedoms as the able-bodied.
Technorati Tags:disability rights,hate speech,religious right
Now I have read almost enough about the Religious Right to convince me that if Jesus or God came down to Earth, the evangelicals would have a whole lot of 'splaining to do.
Remember Jeff Gannon? Master of the softball questions for George W. Bush and and gay sex escort on HotMilitaryStud.com? Mr. Gannon, aka James Dale Guckert, is now a spokesman for the International Bible Reading Association. He recently managed a not very successful Bible Reading Marathon for the evangelical National Day of Prayer that was on Thursday. (Amusingly, this NDP site has a Flash image of George Washington praying by his horse. What the evangelicals don't know is that George Washington did not like to attend church). God obviously is not a crowd magnet, at least not for wayward conservatives like Jeff Gannon who had only thirty-seven people,mostly tired tourists, out of six hundred seats.
NOTE: I am not linking to any images of Mr. Gannon. I have seen the nude photos and I prefer to keep my lunch.
IN OTHER RELIGIOUS NEWS:
The Westboro Baptist Church, infamous for Fred Phelps' "God Hates Fags" website (No, I'm not linking to the site, their production values are not to my standards), is protesting at the funerals of murdered Virginia Tech students with the theme of "God Hates Virginia Tech and America". The church's basic premise is that God has punished Virginia Tech with murder because America tolerates gay people. Hookay...The Westboro church has also protested at the funeral of the saintly Mister Rogers of television fame. I wonder how the Phelps feel about former gay male escort Jeff Gannon being a spokesman for a Bible association?
Technorati Tags:jeff gannon,mister rogers,religious right ,westboro baptist church
While we wait for Deborah Jeane Palfrey to divulge her clients,let's list more hypocritical Religious Right organizations that don't have the issue on their website:The Christian Coalition,The Family Research Council, and nada on The Eagle Forum site. Nothing from the Traditional Values Coalition. There's not a peep from the bastion of male purity, The Promise Keepers. It seems that the Religious Right is not upset about Randall Tobias' moral failings, even though he was their man in the White House for abstinence based sex ed.
The World Magazine doesn't mention it.
There is a loud silence about Republican and Religious Right wrongdoing that needs to be addressed. If they can't police their own, there is no moral authority in their beliefs and politics when they misinform and endanger people with an abstinence and fidelity policy that the promoters, such as Tobias, will not follow.
Technorati Tags: deborah jeane palfrey,religious right
I've been surfing the Religious Right websites and have come back to report that there is a great silence about Randall Tobias' fall from grace. Not a peep on the Concerned Woman for America site about the scandal, although they do have outdated info about Mr. Tobias when he was an AIDS czar. This from an organization that touts abstinence before marriage and fidelity in marriage. Nada for Focus on the Family.
The 700 Club has a story but not the American Family Association.
Nothing on the Christianity Today site.
It seems that when the religious right has one of their own fall from favour, there is a conspiracy of silence regarding an issue (sex) that can lead to things that they politically and morally abhor: fornication, adultery, and abortion. The Religious Right needs to clean their own house before telling everyone else what to do.
Technorati Tags: deborah jeane palfrey,religious right
David W. Logsdon lived with the body of his first murder victim, Patricia Reed, before going on a killing spree at the Ward Parkway shopping center in Kansas City.Logsdon beat Ms. Reed to death, then stole her late husband's rifle and her car. He used the victim's credit cards for purchases.
With respect and sorrow for the dead woman, sometimes having a gun in the house is not a defence. Guns can be, and are often, stolen and used for criminal purposes.
Technorati Tags:guns,kansas city
Okay, it's official. Republican Texas legislators, with few exceptions, are stupid. In reaction to the Virginia Tech shootings, Governor Rick Perry has decided to introduce legislation to make it easier to carry concealed weapons with the addled thought that people can defend themselves against criminals. This despite evidence that access to guns make it more likely that people will kill themselves (and others) if there is gun availability. Hopefully,any legislation to loosen gun control laws in Texas will fail.
Technorati Tags: guns ,rick perry,texas
The decision of Congress to not override the Bush veto of legislation that would have authorised troop withdrawal from Iraq was a moral failing far worse than any sleaze that an escort service provider could divulge. By a vote of 222 to 203,Congress failed to reach the two-thirds support needed to override the veto and bring home American troops who are unnecessarily in harm's way. As of today, 3352 soldiers have died in Iraq because of a war that was founded upon the lies of the Bush administration regarding the weapons of mass destruction threat in Iraq.
It is unjustifiable that the Bush administrations and its minions continue to sell the American public these falsehoods. Recently, Oklahoma Senator Inhofe said of the media at his fund raiser, "The whole idea of weapons of mass destruction was never the issue, yet they keep trying to bring this up." It wasn't the press who entered a foolish war on flimsy pretences, it was the President. To quote George W. Bush's justifications for the Iraq war on May 29, 2003,"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." No weapons of mass destructions have been found and the failure of the Congress to correct the consequences of this lie will condemn more American soldiers to horrible injuries and deaths.
Technorati Tags:george bush,inhofe,iraq,wmd
Hi! Radio Free Canada has a new feature that I have named "Your Daily Debbie". It's a way to keep you informed of the latest news on the Internet about D.C.'s favourite alleged madam and her high-powered clients. So sit back, relax, and enjoy while the political mighty tremble.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the alleged "D.C. Madam" who ran an escort service, has vowed to out more customers in hope of avoiding the charges of running a prostitution ring.
Technorati Tags: deborah jeane palfrey
Police identified the gunman in the Kansas City shopping mall murders as David W. Logsdon. Logsdon stole a car from a neighbour, Patricia Ann Lewis. Ms.Lewis was found dead in her home.Police believe at this time that her death may be connected to the mall murders. Killed at the mall were Leslie N. Ballew and Luke A. Nilges.
In other news, the Virginia government has passed a law mandating that those people who have been involuntarily indicated for mental health treatment be on lists that gun sellers must check before selling guns. The law does not apply to gun shows but legislation to that effect is being introduced shortly.
Technorati Tags:guns,kansas city,virginia tech
Tomorrow, I am taking a break from this blog. I will return on the first of May. Part of my brief hiatus is for a silent vigil for the Virginia Tech victims. I also need a break from blogging tragedies like today's shootings where an unnamed gunman wounded several and killed three people at the Ward Parkway shopping mall near Kansas City. Police shot and killed the gunman.
Technorati Tags:guns,kansas city,silent vigil
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the alleged "D.C. Madam" who ran an escort service, has named US naval commander Harlan Ullman --- the architect of the Iraq war invasion strategy of shock and awe --- as one of her customers on her website.
Technorati Tags: deborah jeane palfrey,harlen ullman,shock and awe
First Paul Wolfowitz....
Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias, a Bush appointee, who was the director for United States foreign assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development has resigned his post. Mr. Tobias, who was once was a top administrator for the Bush international AIDS policy that promoted abstinence and withheld grants from grants from agencies unless they swore that they opposed prostitution, quit his job at the USAID because he was utilizing an escort service that specialized in "legal game-playing of a sexual nature" according to the owner of the service, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who is now arraigned in federal court for running a prostitution ring. Mr. Tobias, who is married, in his tenure as an administer for the Bush AIDS policy, ran an agency whose dogma was refraining from sex and partner fidelity.
I wonder how Mrs. Tobias feels about all this...
Technorati Tags: deborah jeane palfrey,randall tobias,usaid
Neo-Nazi Kevin Alfred Strom has been charged with possession of child pornography. He is also charged with using the Internet for the purpose of obtaining sex from a ten-year-old girl. and witness tampering due to physical and mental intimidation of a witness.
However, Mr. Strom is not the only racist perp to be charged with indecencies toward children. Gordon Creal Young, former leader of the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was charged in January 2007 with forcing a fifteen-year-old girl to perform oral sex. In the same month, Matthew Downing a Boston activist and organizer with the National Vanguard white supremacist movement, was arrested for felony statutory rape of a fourteen-year-old girl.
I feel ill at these reports. Not only are white supremacists evil for their racism,they have shown how sick-minded they are with what they consider their own kind. A normal person does not hurt a child, of any ideological persuasion, in this manner. These crimes show that racism and child abuse are of the same monster:the need to control and manipulate people through injury and subjugation.
Technorati Tags: kevin alfred strom ,ku klux klan,white supremacist movement
David C. Brinkerhoff, a New York state trooper was killed by Travis D. Trim. The suspect also shot Trooper Richard Mattson. Trim is suspected of shooting another officer,Trooper Matthew Gombosi, when the officer pulled the suspect over for a traffic stop . Gombosi was saved by his body armour. There is no word on the condition of Mattson.
David C. Brinkerhoff was a member of the Mobile Response Team and the second member of that team to die since September of last year.This horror comes after the shooting death two weeks ago of Utica police officer Thomas Lindsey. The police have arrested a suspect, Sammy Rivera. Lawmakers in New York are considering the death penalty for certain cases, including cop killers. Governor Eliot Spitzer is amiable to the suggestion.
Technorati Tags: david c. brinkerhoff ,death penalty,guns,thomas lindsey
The Department of Veteran Affairs has authorized the pentacle as an official symbol for military memorial plaques. This comes after nine years of litigation from plaintiffs who had family members who either died in service to their country or whose family members had already served America in the military.
Technorati Tags:veteran affairs,wicca,pentacle
The incumbents in Northwest Suburban High School District 214 in Illinois defeated Phyllis Schlafly backed challengers for control of the school board.Alva Kreutzer, Bill Dussling and Bob Zimmanck defeated Dennis Konczyk and Kenneth Frizane. Eagle Forum head Schlafly chose her candidates because one candidate is a church elder and the other is a church youth group leader, and for their anti-tax beliefs.
Technorati Tags:religious right,
phyllis schlafly
David Howard Thurm killed manager Laura Schoellmann as she was attempting to save her co-workers at a Houston luxury apartment on Monday. He then killed himself. Thurm was facing eviction for loud noises in the apartment. He earlier shot the neighbour who made the complaint. The unidentified neighbour survived.
UPDATE: APRIL 25, 2007:
Two people were wounded in the Houston shooting where Laura Schoellmann bravely warned her co-workers before David Thurm, who left a suicide e-mail to his family, killed her with a revolver.
This is a tragedy not only because of Ms. Schoellmann's death but I may have found her name on a list of donors for Houston Hospice #6. If this is her, then she was indeed a good person whose life will be missed. If any of my readers can confirm this connection, please e-mail me (in my profile) so that I can add her good deeds to this blog.
UPDATE: APRIL 26, 2007:
One of the people wounded was Sarcalm Zevadia, husband of Israel's deputy consul general in Houston, Belaynesh Zevadia, who was not at home at the time of the shooting. The deputy consul general was not home at the time of the shooting. Although he was severely wounded, Mr. Zevadia is not in danger of dying.
Technorati Tags:guns,laura schoellmann,houston,sarcalm zevadia
Tony Blair is expected to announce his resignation as Prime Minister of England after elections on May 3. The speculation is that Blair will give his resignation on either May 9 or 10.
Well, it is about time that Mr. Blair departed. After making a disastrous decision to aid the United States in its war in Iraq that has cost about 145 British lives, and after a scandal involving money being paid to the Labour party for access to Blair in the cash-for-honours scheme, it is a wise move for Mr. Blair to resign. While Tony Blair has been cleared of any charges that he personally took money for the Labour Party in exchange for knighthoods and peerages, the allegations toward some of his ministers has tainted Mr. Blair's political standing.
My bet is that the British will not vote kindly toward the Labour Party in the new elections. Tony Blair and his ministers damaged the credibility of his office and his political party.
Technorati Tags: tony blair, cash for honours great britain
Give it a break, people. No more shootings. If you have a problem, then hide in your room and listen to your mp3 player. Or do the sensible thing and seek help. But you aren't glamorous when you appear on the nightly news after massacring people with your coward's toy, your pistol or shotgun. I am sorry if I sound like I am at the edge but this is stupid to do copycat murders. Have a friggin' clue. You are not original when you use a gun to off people. You're not a hero and/or you're not a victim when you use a gun. You're either in jail or dead. No one shares your pain if you injure and kill, they are too busy caring for the wounded or grieving the dead. But people will listen if you cry for help. So get some assistance. The world is waiting for you and it has a lot more to offer than cell bars or a grave.
Technorati Tags: nasa shooting, guns
Arthur Mann, who killed Clara Riddles in the CNN Centre, is under indictment for her murder.The prosecutors are meeting with her family to decide whether or not to pursue the death penalty. Currently, Mann is still in the hospital recovering from a leg wound given when a security guard shot him.
Anthony LaCalamita is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Madeline Kafoury and assault with intent to murder in the wounding of Paul Riva and Alan Steinberg. Mr. Steinberg has come off the ventilator and has regained consciousness.
While the killing of Clara Riddles, Rebecca Griego, and Madeline Kafoury are terrible, I can almost not blog the Virgina Tech shootings. I know college students of the ages of the victims and it tears me apart emotionally. I know people who are going to college in a few years. It bothers me that no one caught Cho Seung-Hui's problems and intervened before he could kill so many people. It angers me that in America, with few exceptions, there has been no serious discussion about gun control in the press and from politicians. Wah, government officials feel your pain but they aren't going to do anything about it because they will tick off the NRA. Hillary Clinton hasn't said anything about gun control on her website. Barack Obama has not said anything. Nada from John Edwards. Only Denis Kucinich mentions it on his website but he has neither the funds nor the political clout to win a presidency.
Technorati Tags: guns, virginia tech,
cho seung-hui,
clara riddles,
madeline kafoury
Phyllis Schlafly has thrown the weight of her organization, the Eagle Forum, behind two candidates in the Northwest Suburban High School District 214 of Cook County, Illinois. If Radio Free Canada readers recall, this is the school district where school board member Leslie Pinney tried to ban several books. Ms. Schlafly has endorsed Ken Frizane and Dennis Konczyk,because of the book ban issue, also for the fact that one candidate is a church elder and the other is a church youth group leader, and for their anti-tax beliefs. So far, both candidates are down for the count.
Technorati Tags: banned books, lesley pinney,
religious right,
phyllis schlafly
The world is shocked at the violence at Virgina Tech. In the International Herald Tribune, the Guardian, and the Independent, there is a general consensus that America is a lawless society with loose gun laws. Le Monde weighs in with the opinion that America is not ready to face its gun problem by advocating that the students of Virginia Tech should have had guns (NOTE: I read the article in French. The reader, if one cannot read French, will need to go to Babelfish for translation). The Province from Canada see the problem as social malaise. The National Post reports that a Canadian teacher from Nova Scotia, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, was killed. In a story from the Hindustan Times, the newspaper reports that two Indians were killed and that a single Glock pistol was used as the murder weapon. He also had a Walther P22 compact pistol. The murderer was identified as Cho Seung-Hui.
Technorati Tags: guns, virginia tech,
cho seung-hui
As I sit here at my computer, I am sobbing at the the massacre that happened at Virginia Tech. A gunman has killed at least 31 people, then died from gun wounds bringing the toll to 33 people.There aren't adequate words to describe the terror that loose gun laws cause when anyone with a grudge, such as the Virginia gunman ( who may have been looking for his girlfriend) or Johnathon Rowan or Arthur Mann or Anthony LaCalamita III, can get a gun and use it for such devastating results. I hope the NRA is feeling pain at this moment for its stupid insistence that guns laws should be loosened. But it won't ever be the hurt and the loss and the horror that the surviving family members carry for the rest of their lives.Update: The gunman killed himselfUpdate Two: April 17, 2007 The gunman used two 9-mm semi-automatic handguns to kill both the students at Virginia Tech and himself. Basically, a semi-automatic handgun is one that can fire bullet after bullet without much of an interval. The killer also had chained the students into Norris Hall and had extra ammunition in a vest.I felt ill when I looked at videos that I found on the Internet of people at gun ranges who were using 9-mm semiautomatic handguns. There is no escape time and the students at Virginia Tech did not have any time to flee from a person who was using such a deadly weapon.Technorati Tags: guns,virginia tech
I read in the Vancouver Sun,in a real newspaper, that Sam Zell who acquired the Tribune Corporation in March 2007, recently said“If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?”
Sheesh, talk about Sam Zell being an old fuddy-duddy with no understanding of the Internet or Google... Google is not just about news searches, it's a lifestyle. I can get RSS feeds in my personalised homepage and Google Reader, make spreadsheets and other documents, correspond with other people through e-mail, watch videos on YouTube, join Google groups, map routes and research local businesses through Google Maps, research public domain books in Google Books, check out other blogs in Blogger, post my own sites on Blogger, and research through Google Scholar. If I have left out anything on Google, then it is not through lack of attempt. I can't do all of the services that Google offers with a print newspaper. The Internet is not about news, it's about services like the tools I review on my other blog.In Linux. Ta!
The print news industry is outdated because paper and ink aren't flexible enough to keep on top of the latest. Newspapers aren't interactive for people and that will be print's downfall. Sam Zell bought the farm on his Tribune acquisition and Google is not to blame.
Technorati Tags: Sam Zell, newspapers, google
On Vancouver Island, there will be efforts to deter harbour seals from eating Chinook salmon through mild electric shocks.The Department of Fisheries and Oceans hopes to install an electric field underwater to shock the seals into retreat. Smith-Root is the company that is setting up the electric field.
The electric field has been tested at the Vancouver Aquarium and it seems that there are no lasting side effects on seals from this deterrence. While seals are just following their natural instincts, it is also necessary to save the Chinook population. An electric field is a compromise but does not address the pollution issue on the Puntledge River nor does it inquire about the necessity of sports fishing. As a former fisher who ate the fish I caught, I've since become vegetarian and do not see the point of fishing unless it is absolutely essential for survival. Sport fishing is a waste of resources that would be better utilized to maintain the environment and the delicate balance of life in the waters.
Technorati Tags: harbour seals, fishing, environment
The current issue of Rolling Stone has an article about Battle Cry, an evangelical ministry that attempts to wean children and teenagers from mainstream media and win them to Jesus through media boycotts. The ministry is supported by recording service TiVo. Battle Cry is also taking its message to Romania, Guatemala, and other countries.
While there are some flaws in American entertainment such as the violence and sex that is promulgated in the media, from a capitalistic point of view it is unwise to transform the secular entertainment industry to a Christian propaganda machine. Services and entertainment are the only industries that thrive in the United States. Manufacturing is dead, information technology is easily shipped to anywhere there is Internet, and most of the food that Americans eat is imported. Jesus isn't going to save the United States if an atheistic country like China produces the goods that Americans buy. The Chinese can build goods better, cheaper, and faster. Or bootleg them.
Furthermore, the entertainment industry can be outsourced too. What is there to say that America will retain its preeminence in media? Ministers like Ron Luce do not understand what I have coined as the "widget economy". Media isn't the big multinational corporations entirely; there is blogging,vlogging, podcasts et cetera. One only need use the service Stumble Upon, a web application that steers the viewer to random web sites based on pre-programmed criteria (which can be filtered against adult content, by the way) to see what odd and specialized niches there are in the world.
There is also the simple fact that the rest of the world will not buy Christianized media on the scale that other countries buy secular entertainment. Christian entertainment is for the most part unexciting, dull, and usually poorly crafted. Christian media is only an ape of secular media from Christian heavy metal bands to Christian homemaker magazines. The production values in Christian media aren't very good and it is transparent that Christian entertainment is an earnest copycat of what has already been done. The bar is raised high in entertainment production values and Christian media can't compete worldwide.
Last, and history is always a good muse to contemplate, Ron Luce and his fellow ministers ought to heed the fate of Girolamo Savonarola who sought to banish and burn the entertainments of fifteenth century Florance, Italy and died on his own Bonfire of the Vanities. People like their entertainment and will do what they will to obtain it. China has restricted foreign magazines, books,newspapers, and movies to hotels that cater to Westerners. The bootleg economy of Western media among Chinese citizens is thriving. To restrict media or to try to Christianize media will only create illicit markets. While it is good to keep a watch and critique on media, completely transforming entertainment to one ideology creates economic disincentives that eventually would hurt the general economy like Savonarola destroyed the economy of Florance.
Technorati Tags: religious right, romania, guatamala, china, savonarola
Madeline Kafoury,age 63, was the murder victim in the Michigan office shootings. Her colleagues, Paul Riva and Alan Steinberg, are still in the hospital with their wounds.
In another shooting case, please see the memorial tribute to Nicholas Pekearo on the the Protect.org site. Officer Pekearo was shot and killed, on March 14, 2007, along with his colleague Yevgeniy Marshalik by a murderer who had just killed a pizza shop owner. Police later surrounded and shot the killer.
Technorati Tags: guns
I am taking a break because I am coming down with bronchitis and have to take care of a family member with the same disease. Will start posting again when I am well.
---Anne
I watched an American Experience programme on the radical Emma Goldman. It was very interesting because I know scant about worker movements in America besides the devastating horrors of child labor and heroes like Jane Adams of Hull House. She's my secular saint. I have read more about British reform in the Victorian era then that of the United States.
However, the programme was fascinating and, in a nice surprise that I didn't expect, the writer Andrei Codrescu was one of the commentators.* What was truly meaningful to me was Emma Goldman's exile from America in San Pedro. Like Goldman I feel divorced from my country, that it is a stranger to me. This is hard for someone whose ancestors were Native American and for a descendant of a Revolutionary War hero.
As an ex-pat in Canada, I am more akin to the values of this secular country than to the religious nation that America has become. I left America emotionally when I lived in a suburb heavily populated with Republicans. There was the constant batter of religion and xenophobic nationalism. I did not find any friends. I became depressed and lonely at the Whiteness of it all, in the schools and on the street. Now, I hardly look mixed-race and the Native American blood is rather dilute in my veins, but it is part of me that was angry when I heard people use terms like "wild Indian" to describe rowdy children. Those were my people: the Yakima, the Chinook, the Iroquois, and possibly Ojibwa who are a part of my heritage like my European ancestors.
I already felt in exile in America while I was there. I could not accept the racism and the theological bent to politics of where I lived. In Canada I think of America not as Emma Goldman did, with longing for the country as hers,but as an entity that has become foreign to me in its empirical wars and its theological tyrannies. I think I will not return to the States because America will not come back to me as the country that I remember.
Technorati Tags: emma goldman, andrei codrescu
*NOTE: No, this blog will not become the girl's guide to intellectual men, but I do enjoy posting about some of those I consider tops , like Alan Rickman et alius.
Presidential candidate spouse, Elizabeth Edwards, has scolded herself for not having a mammogram and not catching her breast cancer early.
Ms. Edwards:
You shouldn't dis yourself. It is easy to let that sort of thing go when you are running after the kids and giving all your time to a political campaign. There is only one of you to go around and you should know that you have given the best that you could with your time.
I am glad that your cancer can be treated with anti-estrogen drugs.
You are running the race well and goodspeed to you and your family.
---Anne
Technorati Tags: elizabeth edwards, breast cancer
Arthur Mann, who killed 22-year-old Clara Riddles at the CNN Centre in Atlanta, had a prior conviction for murder in Florida, a conviction for sex with a minor, and for grand theft auto.
The question to be asked is how a convicted felon could get a handgun? Or how could an illegal alien like Johnathon Rowen obtain a firearm? Perhaps Americans need to listen to the wisdom of the Quebec government that is thinking of putting greater restrictions on guns after the tragic death of Anastasia Rebecca de Sousa at Dawson College on September 13, 2006.
Updated April 6th,2007
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