Speed Bump Dog

Who knew, that "south of the border" in South Carolina (!) there is a "Mexican" theme park?

I was told years ago that California was a giant Donald Duck clutching a hot dog in its beak. Carolina is californicated now.

More pix here.

Separated at Birth?

His faithful servant Algor, and Pakistani Kleptocrat Nawaz Sharif.

What War Is Like

Want to know what war is like? Read this.

Genius or Pompous Ass?

So this blog is rated on readability, if you believe this sort of thing.

Either, gentle reader, you are a genius, or I am a pedant.

Or maybe both are true.

HT: Larison.

An Adoptee's Poem

Scattered Among Many

Two silhouettes linger in a narrow hallway
the crisp tie rested on his chest and
her delicate smile seemed at ease.
walking the clanking path my eyes
were slanted sharply escaping the
foreign faces
the rubber soles grazed against
the floor
I remember the precise moment

Still of all the visions that enthralled my eyes
The one repeating continuously
Like a broken tape player spitting out
The same verse
My hands clutched the side of the bag
As I proceeded further
Towards the two strangers
Perplexed with out thought I waited
To exhale
a drop of tear glided on my cheek
my eyes slant once more
staring at the pale window
children’s voices echoed like a hymn
Then a grip clasped my hands
Sweeping me from a place
Once forgotten but
Rests within the memories
Scattered among many

The NY Times is running a blog of personal writings about adoption. The above poem is by a girl, now a teenager, who was adopted from an orphanage in Vietnam, remembering the precise moment she first saw her adoptive parents.

I will let the poem speak for itself.

Hollywood's Red Decade

One of my hobbyhorses has been the deification of the Hollywood Ten, Hollywood writers who were prosecuted for refusing to testify before a Congressional committee investigating communist influence in filmland.

The business of interrogating people about their political views is, to be sure, unsavory. But these guys really were supporters of Stalin, a mass murderer. Why they should be given a bye when any hint of Nazi sympathies makes one a pariah has never been clear to me.

In this post, J.K.Dunn regales us with snippets about some of the pro-Russian propaganda films of the WWII era, encouraged by FDR, who feared that suspicion of the alliance with Stalin would harm his 1944 campaign. Dunn writes:

There are good reasons why the left doesn't claim these films. Instead, they try to take credit for other, unrelated films: film noir, which is supposed to represent a "Marxist critique of American society". (This is nonsense - almost none of the noir film-makers were leftists of any sort. Like all film buffs, I have my own theory concerning noir, which we don't have the space for here.), and the "social problem" films of the late 40s through the 50s, such as Gentleman's Agreement, No Way Out, and On the Waterfront. But the Hollywood Reds were either blacklisted or doing time during the heyday of these pictures. With few exceptions (Laurents wrote one, Home of the Brave), social problem films were liberal propositions.

No better example of the intellectual and artistic bankruptcy of the left exists than these films. They should have been allowed to make as many as they wanted. No blacklist, no Congressional hearings, no interference whatsoever. A couple dozen more like these and Hollywood communism would have been relegated to comic relief. Left alone, they'd have knocked themselves out.

I'm Just a Sentimental Old Fool

I'm a sucker for anything involving little kids. Here's the story:

This is John Gebhardt in Iraq. His wife Mindy reports that this little girl's entire family was executed. The insurgents intended on executing this little girl, too. In fact, they tried by shooting her in the head. But miraculously, this little girl lived, but is obviously suffering while her body tries to heal. She cries and moans incessantly, but John is able to calm her. The nurses where she's being treated say John's the only one she clings to. So John and this little Iraqi girl have slept for the last four nights in that chair so that she can continue to heal after her injury.

The politics of the war is one thing. Any act of love is another.

HT: Duane Patterson

On se souvient

This Québequois song show a nostalgia, and not for mud:

HT: Dreher.

C'est triste, ça.

Vegetable Love

Rick Lee has been posting vegetable pics from his Thursday night shopping trips forever and a day.

As Andrew Marvell wrote:

Our vegetable love shall grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.

The Polymer Candidate

Hugh Hewitt is a nice guy and a partisan Republican. I think he's Pollyannaish about the Iraq war and too much of an interventionist, but that's by the bye.

In this post, he argues that social conservatives shouldn't support Huckabee because Romney is the only conservative who has a chance against Giuliani. He pooh-poohs the notion of Romney's plasticity.

Robert Redford thinks Mitt Romney and all Mormons are "plastic," which is one of the funniest Hollywood yelps in a long, long time. I guess he's in a position to know plastic.

He's right about the anti-Mormon generalization here, but wrong about Romney. The only question is whether he's polystyrene or polyethylene. He's also a complete opportunist on social issues. Giuliani at least doesn't pander--what you see is what you get.

I don't get what his supporters see in Romney.

Ethnic Cleansing in Los Angeles

What started as a feel-good discussion on ways to reduce racial bias quickly turned into a freewheeling debate today as the Los Angeles City Council voted to declare a "symbolic moratorium" regarding the use of a common slur against African Americans.

Voting 11 to 0 on a resolution by Councilman Bernard C. Parks, the council ceremoniously banned the use of the word "nigger" after hearing testimony from lawyer Gloria Allred, a group of civil rights leaders and the owner of the nightclub where "Seinfeld" star Michael Richards used the word repeatedly during a standup routine last year.

The testimony quickly veered into other territory as several African American audience members addressed the council to argue the city had not worked hard enough to protect its black residents from gang members of Mexican descent.

"This is a false attempt by Councilman Parks to cover up the fact that they have not done anything with the illegal alien gangs who are killing black Americans in South Los Angeles," said the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the group Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny.

One speaker said he would prefer a moratorium on gang violence and out-of-wedlock births. Another said that in South Los Angeles, "you have one race of people exterminating another race of people."

The Whale, a.k.a. the LA Times, reports that the City Council adopted a symbolic (and unconstitutional) ban on the "N-word." Speakers pointed out that Mexican/Central American gangs are systematically driving blacks out of their neighborhoods. It's a fact that this is happening, and none of the liberals in LA wants to face it. Thety'd rather ignore it and adopt silly feel-good resolutions.

More "diversity." More mass immigration. More trouble.

A Hopeful Sign

Michael Yon has published this picture of Christians in Iraq (joined by Muslims) putting a cross on the dome of a church.

I've become skeptical of the war in Iraq, in concept, and especially in execution, but this is a hopeful sign.

Pressured by Zionism, Islamism, civil conflict in Lebanon, and the Iraq War, Christians have been leaving the region, the most ancient locus of Christianity, for decades, and recent events have made it worse.

So it's encouraging to see this small positive sign.

MarsEdit

This and the previous post were created with MarsEdit, a neat Mac blog-editing program that allows one to create posts off-line, and upload them when convenient.

It's very simple to use and gives good results.

More Fake Hate Crimes

Once again, a person associated with a university has been caught faking a hate crime, in this case a Jewish student placing swastikas on her door.

This phenomenon is truly strange. Some people prefer being victims, even imaginary ones, to being themselves. It's a weak version of faking one's own death.