I have been watching and reading, as I am sure you have, a great deal of the coverage and discussion about the mass murder at VaTech. Other than the quick politicization of the affair, as I wrote about in a previous blog, I have been struck by the quickness of the blame game that is being played here. It started almost as quickly as the politicization did, and it is no less unseemly in my eyes.

First, there were the cries of  "Where were the police?", and "Why didn't they lock down the campus?", followed quickly by calls for the resignation of the campus police Chief W.R. Flinchum and University President Charles Steger. While I understand that this is an upsetting incident, to say the least, I am left feeling a bit outraged by all this outrage at these two men.

Chief Flinchum did the best he could do under the circumstances, in my opinion. He had to deal with a double murder in a dorm that seemed like a domestic violence situation, and he followed the best lead he had; believing that the killer was the boyfriend of the victim, the police left campus to get him. Their lead was wrong, but that is the way that things sometims go in a police investigation. Going after the person he thought was the killer does not, in my opinon, make Chief Flinchum the bad guy in this scenario...and it did not allow the later events to take place.

And how does a police force lock down a 2600 acre campus? It's not exactly like locking down the local high school that may have 3-4 buildings on it; this is 2600 acres we're talking about here! And think of this, if the campus had been locked down, the killer would have probably simply killed the people he was confined with. This man was on a mission to kill, and a lock down was not going to deter him from completing his mission.

As for the President, what good does it do to force him out? I'm pretty sure that he did not have in his day-planner "Allow student massacre" circled for the day! In our rush to blame someone else for the actions of one deranged individual, we are willing to sacrifice a man that has done, by most accounts, a fine job of running that university.

Then came the hand wringing over the fact that Cho Seung-Hui had written some disturbing plays and poems, and that some felt he was dangerous. At these revelations, the mob began to howl that he should have been institutionalized or at the very least kicked out of school. Populist-in-Chief Bill O'Reilly said on his show that Seung-Hui should have been expelled from the university for allegedly stalking a female student and for his disturbing writings; he later amended that to a suspension, but you get the drift. It was all about the university being held responsible for the actions of this one man, not the man himself.

But someone please tell me this, what grounds would he school have expelled him on? The fact that he was an alleged stalker? Or that he was feared by some classmates, even though he had not even made any threats towards them? Or because he wrote some plays that disturbed his professors? If writing disturbing stuff is grounds for institutionalization then we had better go get the people who wrote the SAW movies, and Stephen King too. The SAW movies were definitely disturbing, and Mr. King has written some things that kept me awake at night! But this is so strange to me, especially coming from conservatives, because we are usually the first to complain when some lib gets the vapors because something disturbs him. Remember how we mocked Tom Daschle for always being disturbed, but now that this happens the teacher being disturbed should be grounds for committment to a mental institution?

Now there is the uproar about ABC news airing Seun-Hui's "Manifesto" and video footage. "Why, ABC should be ashamed of itself for airing that footage! It is disrespectful and hurtful to the families to show this, and may inspire copycats!", splutters the right. But, even though you may find it distasteful, it is news. And even if you fnd them distasteful, ABC is still a news organization...and they had an obligation to show that footage. You are free to watch or not watch, that is your choice; but as a news organization ABC News was duty bound to air that tape. Besides which, after all of the whining we have done about the refusal of the news media to air the images of 9/11, doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical of us to now catch the vapors over this, and claim that it is too traumatic to air? Isn't that the exact argument that the left uses to protest the airing of the 9/11 footage? See the hypocrisy there, folks? I do.

Also, there is the talk about what the students should have done during the shooting. Some are acting as though it was the responsibility or duty of the students to run towards the gunfire in order to stop the carnage. But you know what, all of those people saying that would have probably done exactly what those scared kids did on that campus: Get the hell away ASAP! They wouldn't have gone running towards the gunfire, just like I wouldn't have. Heck, the only people I know who run towards gunfire are cops and soldiers...and they have the means to fight back! What good would it have done for a group of unarmed studentsto go rushing into a free fire zone, trying to be heroes? They may have gotten him eventually, but I can just about guran-damn-tee you that there would have been more than 33 victims if they had tried that, and we would be seeing even more families in mourning today. So all the armchair heroes, who get to talk about what should have been done from the safety of their homes should just stick the proverbial sock in it. The next time you are in a situation where you're unarmed and someone starts firing on people, you can tell me all about how you rushed the gunman...if you survive the encounter.

But the thing that bothers me most is how, in laying blame all around, the one person that is to blame is almost overlooked. We are so busy blaming Chief Flinchum and his campus police force, President Steger for a slow response, the other students for not rushing towards gunfire, and ABC News for airing a newsworthy video that we are forgetting one person: Cho Seung-Hui.

It was Cho Seung-Hui who murdered two people in a dormitory, it was Cho Seung-Hui who purchased those guns...legally...for the purpose of committing these murders, and it was Cho Seung-Hui who committed the largest mass murder in American history. Not those scared students, not Chief Flinchum, not President Steger, not ABC News....CHO SEUNG-HUI!!!!!

And the sooner we stop playing blame games, and start looking at the real culprit, the better off we will all be.

Watching the coverage of the Don Imus affair and the recent massacre of students at Virginia Tech, I have been struck by just how political everything has become. Nothing that happens in our society can be seen simply as it is, it is now all filtered through a political lens whether it has anything to do with politics or not.

I know this is not a new phenomenon, but the attitude that all things are political just bothers me somewhere down deep. And the politicization is not just coming from the left, oh no, it comes from the right as well! Take the Don Imus affair for example. I have been hearing people that I usually respect and agree with floating some of the most preposterous things about the whole Imus imboglio. Somehow, Don Imus and his comments went from being about what he said and whether or not he should be punished to a discussion of the politics of the affair. I heard a reporter ask a question at the White House news briefing about what the President thought about Imus's remarks and what should happen to him. As if the President of the United States has nothing better to do than follow the ramblings of Don Imus! But the question was just an attempt, in my view, to try to get the President caught up in the mess and to use whatever statement made from the White House to paint a negative political picture. But I also listened, in stunned disbelief, as my personal favorite on talk radio tried to spin it in a different way politically. I heard Rush Limbaugh say on his show that the firing of Don Imus was orchestrated by the Clintonistas, and that it was really a shot across the bow to let conservatives know that they're next. Then I logged on to TownHall and read the same sentiments from posters here and I wondered: When did this become a political issue?

Then came the horrific events at VaTech, and sad is may seem, my thoughts went straight from the massacre to waiting to see how quickly the talk would turn to politics...gun control in particular. And it did not take long at all. One of the first reports that I saw was at my mother in law's house on CNN and the reporter and anchor were already talking about how easy it was for people to purchase handguns in Virginia, and how the laws pobably needed to be tougher. Then I heard some conservatives talking about how this could have been avoided if there was not a "gun free" zone on the VaTech campus and how that is a symptom of the liberal influence on society....then I came to TownHall and read some of the same things here. And the arbiter of all that is political, Rosie O'Donnell, came out trashing the President for going to the VaTech campus to speak at the convocation when it took him 5 days to get to New Orleans after Katrina. And I asked myself again: When did this become political?

The answer, I guess, is when we the people decided that everything was to be looked at from a political standpoint. As much as the news media has to do with it, and they are a big influence, they wouldn't cover stories that way if we weren't eating it up. We don't tune in to watch the news anymore, even on FNC, we tune in to watch the politics. We tune in to root on our side and to boo and hiss the other side; I know because I am just as guilty as anyone else of doing it. I only watch about 10 minutes of national news coverage a night, and that is the roundtable segment on Brit Hume's show on FNC; the news has ceased to be news because we want to see our gladitorial political battles played out in front of us.

So the next time we are watching some report about...oh a car safety issue...and we start to wonder why it is being reported as a political issue, don't get mad at NBC. Take a look in the mirror and think about how quick YOU were to see the political perspective there. It's not their fault, they're just giving us what we want.

All politics, all the time.

Since I decided to title my blog "Calling a Spade a Spade", I have only occasionally called the spade on my conservative brethren. That has not been by design, but because I generally have found less to correct in the words and actions of conservatives than I have with Republicans and liberals (Democrats included). But this whole Don Imus situation has put me in a position where I think it is time for me to call the spade on my side of the aisle.

First of all, we conservatives have launched into the biggest hysterical fit I have seen in ages over this. There has been all sorts of talk emanating from the right about how this is a constitutional issue, how Imus had his rights trampled on by the P.C. Police, and how wrong it was that he was fired by MSNBC and CBS Radio. That is the biggest crop of crap I have heard in a while! No one said that Don Imus did not have a right to say the mean spirited, racist, and misogynistic things that he said on his show; there was an uproar and a backlash that followed that was predictable and led to his dismissal. He has a right to say what he wants, but he does not have a right to continue to be employed as a radio talk show host. Simple as that, no constitutional issues here at all, so you can all just move along folks!

Secondly, there was the sudden rush to defend Imus's words as just a stupid joke gone awry. Maybe that was the case, but is that the type of joke that we want airing over the public airwaves? Conservatives were all fired up over the Janet Jackson/ Justin Timberlake halftime debacle, but suddenly we rush to defend a man that calls the Scarlet Knights "nappy headed ho's" and laughs while his producer calls them "jigaboo's" as some sort of First Amendment martyr. Do you know how hypocritical that makes us all look? We rush to defend him because we have leaped to the conclusion that if Imus falls, then the next targets will be Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Laura Ingraham. Unless Laura, Rush, or Sean have a history of inflammatory and insulting statements in the same vein as Don Imus, I don't think we have a lot to worry about on that front. But by making him some type of cause celebre, we have lowered them to his level. Nice work on that one guys!

Further, there is the unrelenting attack on Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton that has resulted form this episode. I swear before God that if we didn't have Jesse and Al we would have to make them up! As soon as Jessie and Al spoke up about this issue, the whole conversation changed from what Imus said to what Al and Jesse have said and done in the past....it really has nothing to do with what is happening today, but it gives us all another chance to go after the "race pimps" right? Lord knows that Al and Jesse have been some of the biggest jack-legs out there, and they are among the best in history at race baiting, but in this case they didn't do that at all. They reacted to what DON IMUS said; they didn't make it up, they didn't accuse him falsely, and they didn't misconstrue what he said to suit their purposes. They simply reacted in the way the usually do in these types of situations...only this time they many have been justified in calling for old Donnie's head. If you clicked on my link you may have seen why they were justified here, there has been a consistent pattern over the years from this guy that finally resulted in his getting the boot. To paraphrase Hugh Hewitt, just because the vultures are swarming does not mean they killed their meal!

Finally, there has been a rash of statements about the lyrics of rap music in relationship to this episode, which as I wrote about earlier, I think is apples and oranges. Whether you like or hate rap music, whether you appreciate the artistry of the music or not, it is an art form and has to be taken as such. The language is not acceptable and should be discouraged that is used in much of the music, but it is an art form of sorts.  That makes it fundamentally different from what Don Imus said on his radio show. Besides which, all of the ruminations about how nothing has been said or attempted to be done about this language in rap music are false. Does no one remember Tipper Gore and the heat she got for fighting to get explicit lyrics stickers put on CDs that contained "adult" language? Has everyone forgotten the struggle that C. Delores Tucker waged to get something done about Interscope records, and specifically Snoop Dogg's "Doggystyle" CD? Or the Reverend Calvin Butts and his steamrollering copies of many a rap CD in front of his New York church? And since Rev. Sharpton has become the focal point of criticism here, let's be honest about the situation; Al Sharpton has spoken out and written about his problems with rap music before, it just has never gotten that much attention. Don't believe me? Check here and here to see some of the things that Al has said on this issue that didn't seem to get much media coverage. Also, others in the black community have spoken out against the problems within rap music including Spike Lee, the women of Spellman College, and writer Lonnae O'Neal Parker. The debate has been raging, and hip hop has been taken to task...but no one has been watching! It is way easier for many, including conservatives, to assume that the debate is not being had, that leaders are not speaking out, and that the music has the tacit approval of the black community and it's leaders simply because there is not a great deal of media coverage.

So conservatives, we may need to take a step back and reflect on this issue a bit more. We are not covering ourselves in glory by sticking up for Don Imus, our talk show hosts are not in the same boat as Imus because they know how to show restraint and they have higher standards, and there has been a constant challenging of rap music lyrics by many in the black community...including your favorite target Al Sharpton.

If we are going to say that we are a bit better than the liberals in sticking to facts over opinions and feelings, we failed in that regard in this episode.

So don't get mad at me for saying so. I'm just calling the spade.

In all of the discussion about Don Imus and his comments about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, much has been made about the involvement of Jessie jackson and Al Sharpton calling for Imus's dismissal. All of the misdeeds of the two men in the past have been dredged up in order to provide cover for those wishing to ignore their vioces in this particular matter.

While I have no love for Sharpton or Jackson, I understand exactly how they feel on this one. Many people are too willing to say that what Don Imus said was just a stupid comment and should be forgiven; besides, Jackson once called New York "Hymietown" while running for President. And Sharpton was infamously involved with the Tawanna Brawley hoax back in the 1980s, so he is certainly not clean in the eye of the public. All of that notwithstanding, I find myself sharing in the outrage, hurt, and anger that Sharpton and Jackson have expressed in the past few days.

I have been called n*gger, coon, and watermelon by people in my lifetime. I have been told to get out of the town that I lived in by a group of unseen, drunken rednecks as my two brothers, Craig and Patrick, a cousin and I walked home from playing basketball at a church in our hometown. So I can understand the feeling of the women of Rutgers as they were called "rough ho's", "nappy headed ho's", and "jigaboo's" for no reason at all. And for once I cheered Al Sharpton as he held Don Imus's feet to the fire and would not let him get away with saying that his comments were just "stupid".  And his past history had nothing to do with his standing up against Don Imus and calling his words what they were...racist.

However, some have taken the instance of Don Imus calling the Scarlet Knights "jigaboo" and "ho" to launch into a tirade about the language in rap music. While we can all agree that the language,imagery, and message of much of the rap music out there is reprehensible, let's keep it in the proper perspective.

Rap music is first, last, and always entertainment. It serves the same purpose as television and movies; that is to entertain those that choose to partake of it. As bad as much of this music is, as much as they are calling women b*tches and hoes, it is simply an entertainment medium. Rappers play a role on their records just like actors do on stage or on film. Some of the very names that get bandied about when the conversation turns to the evils of rap music are some of the most straight laced guys in the world. Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eminem, and Ludacris aren't real gangters...they just play one on T.V. When the tour is over, when the record is finished Dr. Dre becomes Andre Young and goes out to his posh neighborhood in L.A. to his wife and kids. Snoop Dogg turns into Calvin Broadus and goes home to help raise his kids; Ludacris becomes Chris Bridges and goes to his suburban Atlanta mansion, Eminem becomes Marshall Mathers, a guy who dotes on his daughter, and Ice Cube becomes O'Shea Jackson and rolls into his L.A. suburb to be a husband and father. These men are not what they say on their records; they are real people with real lives away from the job of being rappers.

That is not to say that much of what passes for hip hop music nowadays has any value, because most of it doesn't. And it is not to say that calling people n*gga, b*tch, or hoe is the way to go, because it isn't. What I am saying is that comparing what any rapper says on a record and what Don Imus said is trying to compare apples to oranges: both are fruits that grow on trees, and that's where the similarities end. As bad as much of the language is on rap records, it is not comparable to what Imus said. At least what is said in rap songs is said in some sort of context; Don Imus simply launched a racist, sexist broadside at a group of women that had done nothing to deserve it. That is the difference between the two.

Don't waste time shedding any tears for Don Imus, or try pretending that his rights have somehow been abridged because they haven't. He exercised his free speech rights, and now he has to live with the consequences of his words. May he choke on his own bile and venom, the mean spirited little coward.

And don't try to turn this into a discussion about what is said on a rap song, because that is just a convenient way to avoid the issue here and compare apples and oranges.

Our government is under attack, not from without but from within. I know that sounds a bit overly dramatic, a bit overwrought for some of you, but that does not make it untrue. There is a movement afoot that seeks to overturn our very system of Constitutional government, that seeks to wreck the balance that our Founders worked so hard to establish, and seeks to concentrate power in the hands of one branch of our government. And this time it is not the judicial branch that is pursuing power, it is the legislative branch that is seeking to usurp the power of the executive.

Since George W. Bush won the hotly contested 2000 Presidential election over Senator Albert Gore (D-Tenn), the Congress has sought to hamstring his administration, to derail any plans he brought forth, and to discredit any policies that he put forth that did not meet their approval. This in itself is not so bad, in fact it is the way the system usually works. The minority Party attempts to put up a principled opposition to the majority Party and uses all of the accepted means of doing so. And if they find themselves in the majority during the administration of a President of the opposite Party, they ratchet things up another level. Again, that is the way the game is played.

However, the Democrat(ic) Party has taken that business as usual and turned it dangerously on it's head. The Democrats, in their zeal to get George Bush have decided that anything goes in their war against Bush, and neither established Senate rules nor the Constitution itself will stand in their way. They are on a mission, and they will go through hell or high water to see it to a successful conclusion.

The Congress started shredding the Constitution in 2002 when it passed the BCRA, better known as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. The bill basically limits political speech in the time frame just before an election...in direct defiance of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. The Congress decided that even though the Constitution says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech", it would do just that in order to "clean up" the campaign process. Conservatives watched in horror as the President stupidly signed into law a measure that clearly conflicted with his oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, and watched in further shock as the SCOTUS ruled that an obviously un-Constitutional law was ruled to have passed Constitutional muster.

The assault was now on, and the President was going to be in for a wicked ride.

The next major blow to the normal operation of the legislative branch was the Democrat(ic) Party's move to unilaterally change the rules of the Senate, especially as it came to judicial confirmation. Democrat(ic) Senators, in an effort to deny the President his choice of judicial appointees, suddenly decided that henceforth a super majority of 60 votes would be necessary to confirm judicial appointees sent to the Senate. When Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn) attempted to rally the Republican majority to force a showdown on the issue, and to invoke the so-called "nuclear option" to deal with the Democrat intransigence, the much ballyhooed "Gang of 14" stepped in to save the day. What they did, though, was to basically uphold the 60 vote majority idea that has since spread to involve all sorts of legislation. Now a bill has to have 60 votes before it is sent to the President's desk instead of the simple majority that was needed up until the Democrat(ic) minority changed the rules in the middle of the game.

Fast forward to the present and you will see a Congress that is hell bent on assuming the powers that the Constitution reserves for the Chief Executive of the United States. While a group of Democrats in the House attempts to pass legislation that would infringe on the powers of the Commander-in-Chief to wage war in the manner that he sees fit, another group in the Senate is demanding answers to why the President chose to fire 8 U.S. Attorneys... who serve at the pleasure of the President. The House Democrats want to set up artificial timetables for troop withdrawals in Iraq and to "slow bleed" the military so that the President has to do as the Congress says in waging war. They seek to assume the powers of a de facto Commander in Chief, while emasculating the real Commander. Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats want to force the President into a position of defending personnel decisions within the Executive branch to the Legislative; they are trying to take away the power of the President to hire and fire as he sees fit by setting themselves up as an unconstitutional watchdog group!

Now, if we saw that type of action taking place in Bolivia, Brazil, or Argentina we would be shocked and outraged by the brazenness of the usurpers. Our Department of State would condemn it in the strongest terms, and the international community would at least feign concern for the rule of law.

So, why are we not calling the actions of this rogue Congress exactly what we would call it if it happened anywhere else in the world?

If it was anywhere else but here, we would be calling it by it's proper name.

Coup D' Etat.

The Democrat(ic) Party has an embarrassing personal problem, and I am willing to give them my expertise for free. I have seen this disease ravage my own Party and am loathe to stand by and allow it to decimate another great Party with such a rich, diverse history. The dread disease that I am speaking of is...(pregnant pause)...P.I.!

1. For the sake of brevity, I will only give a list of the most dangerous and obvious warning signs; if you notice any of these signs in a Party, get it help quickly...or it may be too late!

Symptom#1: Desperation. This is a common symptom and may cause the afflicted to try crazy things to gain attention, such as touting al-Gore as a serious documentarian or William Jefferson as an example of an honest politician.

Symptom#2: Lack of strength. This symptom causes the Party to offer weak non binding resolutions to things like, oh, the Iraq War instead of taking a firm stand on the issue. This weakness is often seen in conjunction with cases of mealy mouth and demands immediate attention!

Symptom#3: Schizophrenia. Sufferers of P.I. often have two or more distinct personalities that surface under stress. Examples include voting for the war, before voting against it, being from the Northeastern U.S. but speaking with a Southern accent, and being a civil rights champion while claiming pride in the slave owning heritage of your home state.

Symptom#4: Memory loss. Those dealing with the ravages of P.I. often have trouble remembering specific events clearly. Examples include how they came into possession of classified raw F.B.I. files, how classified documents ended up in their socks, past statements (circa late 90's) on Iraqi WMD, and how the hell Howard Dean managed to become chair of the DNC!

Symptom#5: Hysteria. This ailment is common among chronic P.I. patients and their partners. It manifests itself in wailing about the "outing" of C.I.A. desk jockeys and the firing of a group of political appointees by the President.

Symptom#6: Self destructive behavior. Many P.I. patients succumb to desperation and do things that will destroy them in the long run. Examples include introducing a new super majority rule in the Senate, playing to the far left fringe, and turning on a loyal member because of his vote on one crucial issue, which drives him to the other camp.

If you see any of these signs in a political Party near you, please urge him to seek help. Big Pharmaceutical has developed a slew of drugs that may just help deal with the problem.

After all, if the little blue pill van help Bob Dole with his E.D., it can surely help the Democrats with their Political Impotence!

Friends, with school in full swing and a family life to maintain,  I have found that lately I had less time to blog than I would like. I haven't been as active at TownHall as usual, and I haven't been adding as much here at the Spade as i would like. But that should not lessen your reading pleasure here because I have five obscure, little noticed posts here that I would like for you all to take a gander at. Many of them are timely and all are pretty good reads...if I do say so myself ;-D  Here they are, in no particular order...enjoy!

Getting Some Religion (pg 3)

Free Speech (pg 4)

Blackout (pg 5)

Like A Kid Again(pg 5)

Fox in the Henhouse (pg4)

Well it is almost Easter, so it must be time again for the requisite "Jesus wasn't God" mockumentaries and commentaries. And it is time for us Christians to get our undies in a bunch, get full of outrage, and stand to defend our God from these scurrilous attacks. But maybe we need to look at this from a different perspective; maybe we need to learn to rejoice in this type of attack.

See, when I was a kid going to church it seemed that every person that stood up to testify about what God meant to them, or what God had done for them ended by saying that we were "living in the last and evil days". As youngster, that kind of talk scared me to death because I thought the world was literally about to end; as I got older I began to discount such talk as almost superstitious, because i saw no signs that the last days were even close to us. Now, I have come to know that we are living in at least the precursor to the end times, if not the end times themselves...and I have no fear of it. I know that what God has ordained will come to pass, whether I like it, dislike it, or ignore it. It will come to pass, because God is who He says He is...and He reigns over all things!

We Christians sometimes spend so  much effort and energy fighting off the attacks on the body of Christ, that we lose sight of the fact that this is how it is supposed to be, and how it is going to be. Matthew 10:16-39 tells us that we are going to be persecuted, even hated for His name's sake, so we need to learn to deal with it and see that it is part of God's perfect will. I know that being persecuted is not easy, nor am I saying that apologetics are no longer needed because they are, now more than ever. We need to be able to explain and defend our faith in front of the world, we need to know what we believe and why we believe it so that we can effectively lift up the name of Christ in this generation. What we don't need to do is worry ourselves about the reasons why the Church is under attack, or become defensive when talking about our Lord and Savior; we need to realize that all the things that we see happening before our eyes were foretold in the Scriptures.

We have been on notice that in the last days men would become lovers of themselves, that sexual perversions would flourish, that the Church would be under near constant attack, and that men would turn away from good doctrine in order to hear things that sound good to them. All of these things are signs that the end is nearer every day, and they are not reasons for fear, angst,or anger. They are in fact what we are to be rejoicing over as it signals that our Lord is soon to come to reclaim this fallen planet, and to take possession of His Bride. Instead of apprehension or fear, we should be looking hopefully towards Heaven every day secure in the knowledge that the Bridegroom is coming to claim His Bride!!

So while we continue to spread God's Word, and while we continue to defend the Gospel against heresy, division, and attack do not forget to rejoice in all things! It will be alright, sooner rather than later because God has ordained it to be so! He hasn't lied to us, and our faith will not be in vain.

Because HE REIGNS!!!!

 Back a few years ago there was a Star Trek spinoff show that I loved, Star Trek: The Next Generation. It had some great characters, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Wesley Crusher, Warf the Klingon, and Commander Data; and it had one very memorable alien 'enemy' called The Borg.

The Borg was an organism that invaded worlds and assimilated every member of the invaded race that could be captured into it. The Borg had one consciousness, was basically one organism made up of many living parts. In one episode The Borg managed to capture and assimilate Captain Picard who was only able to escape with the help of a 'part' of the Borg, a young lady called Seven of Nine ( Seven for short). Seven had no independent thought or freedom as she had been a part of the Borg for her whole life and had to learn how to be free.

I bring this up in the context of some of us insisting that new immigrants must assimilate the way that immigrants in the past did. But I don't believe that immigrants of the past assimilated, I think they integrated. Some may see this as an insignificant play on words, but I believe that words have meanings that carry real power, so we must use them wisely.

When you say that a person or group must assimilate, it is almost like asking them to commit cultural suicide. When you ask them to assimilate, what you are really doing is asking them to give up everything about them that makes them who they are as a group. That may be the reason that so many new immigrants are unwilling to assimilate, because they feel as though they are being asked to stop being themselves and become someone else.

While it is not unreasonable to ask new member of American society to adopt the language and to learn the history of their new home, it is unreasonable to tell them that it is somehow wrong to hold on to their ethnic identity. America has never honestly asked newcomers to assimilate, it has always asked them to integrate.

When newcomers integrate, they become a part of the whole without being asked to deny who they are. They are asked to become one of us, and to add their special flavor to the American melting pot. That is what makes us special, the fact that we can absorb newcomers, add their unique viewpoints and cultural traditions to ours, and to make it American. Just look at a place like Louisiana with its diverse population, different language patterns, and the like. While there are differences in the way people talk, or where they go to church ( if at all) they are still Americans.

I think we should continue to encourage our new citizens to integrate with us and add their dash of spice to America and leave the language of assimilation out of it. We want them to be unique individuals...not Seven of Nine.

 One of my favorite rap songs was by a group called Blacksheep and was called This or That . The hook basically says " You can get with this, or you can get with that...the choice is yours." That line is especially apropos concerning the GOP as the '08 elections approach.

Right now we are being inundated from all sides telling us that Rudy Giuliani is the right guy for us to choose. After all, "America's Mayor" rose to the occasion after the 9/11 attack on New York and has a good handle on the Islamic threat. And according to many in the conservative movement he is the most electible of the early candidates...and has the biggest name among them.

Now, this is not strictly about Rudy and his candidacy; however, that is the impetus for what I am saying here. I am asking the conservatives what they are going to choose in the upcoming primary season. Are we going to be party voters, or are we going to hold true to our principles?

You see, if you are a Party person then Rudy seems like a dream come true. He is (allegedly) strong on national defense, and he is trying his best to say all the right things about social issues to bring in social conservatives on his side. As a Party voter, you can excuse his stance on gun control and his schizophrenic ramblings about abortion...how he hates it, but how he believes in a "woman's right to choose".  A good Party man/woman can easily overlook all of his flaws simply because he may give the Party a better chance of winning in '08.

For the conservatives, we cannot overlook what this man is really about. His enthusiastic support of gun control by itself is a huge red flag for us. If this man is so willing to restrict the rights of the people in this manner to satisfy his liberal leanings, what other rights is he willing to trample on? We look at him and know that he is not in any way, shape, form, or fashion a real conservative; therefore, we cannot give him our support.

But the big picture here is not about Rudy Giuliani, it is about the soul of the GOP. Accepting Rudy or any other WISH Republican as the nominee will signal to the conservative movement that the GOP is no longer for them, that it is more interested in being in power than in really serving the people. And the embrace of the WISH Republicans will be the end of the GOP's chances at regaining power. Conservatives are the heart and soul of the GOP and a steady diet of WISHes will only serve to push the conservatives away. How can we be expected to continue to support a Party that is openly shunning us?

So the GOP needs to choose: This or that? The choice is yours.

*WISH: when it suits him/her

Oh boy, this is rich! This week has put a stupid look on the faces of the Democrats in Congress that is priceless! All of the stuff they pulled as the minority party is coming back to bite them right in the @ss! This is too funny for words!

These learned Democrats have just found out that they have no power, even after winning an electoral victory in November 2006. Their majority is too small in the Senate, and with the unpredictability of "independent Democrat" Joe Liebermann the Donkey Party is in a bad fix. Witness their failure to garner the votes needed to pass their non-binding resolution on Iraq in this rare saturday session. I guess Dingy Harry Reid thought he had the votes needed locked up before he called this session, but he just absorbed a humiliating loss on the slowest news day of the week!

The problem that the Donkeys are having now stem from the tricks they pulled as the minority party, mainly that of requiring a 60 vote super majority on many issues. By pulling that stunt they have painted themselves into the position of needing 60 votes to pass their stupid resolution; before they insisted on changing the rules they would have had the necessary votes in the Senate. Now, they are left hanging due to their own previous machinations.

And what makes it so funny is that the media can't help them now! The fight to require super majorities is too fresh in the public mind for the media to try to spin it as some GOP dirty trick. Harry Reid, Diane Fienstein, and Russ Feingold were too involved in making this the new standard to now back away from it without being seen as the hypocrites they truly are. Think about it: There is finally a problem the Donkeys have that the MSM can't bail them out of. Priceless!!

Now, I don't know if the GOP has the ...ummm...testicular fortitude to continue to stand together on the big issues. But if they do, they will soon realize that by losing in November in a strange way they gained power. Just by being obstructionists like the Donkeys were they can have a huge impact on the workings of the Congress. What a world! The Donkey's dirty tricks have totally backfired on them!

This is the definition of chickens coming home to roost!

narcissism: (n) undue dwelling on one's own self or attainments

At the risk of sounding 'homophobic' and being politically incorrect, let me say that I am sick to death of gay people. That does not mean that i hate gays, or want them to die, or anything like that. I am just sick of hearing their complaints, their agitating for special consideration, and especially their proud pronouncements of the fact that they are gay.

Last week a former NBA player, John Amechi, announced on ESPN's Outside the Lines Sunday that he was in fact a homosexual. Of course ESPN flogged the 'historic' announcement on it's programs all week, ran a million snippets of the interview, and spent a week telling us how Amechi was so brave to come out. They had discussions on their television programs, and on their radio broadcasts all about how tough it must have been for Amechi, especially seeing how 'homophobic' athletes are, ya know!

What I was thinking, though was this: Who cares? I don't care now, nor did I ever care about who John Amechi spent his night with. That is none of my business, and I would have appreciated him keeping his personal life just that...personal.

Which brings me to my broader point, namely that I am sick to death of having to hear about gays all the time. The gay lobby, and some individual gays, are the most narcissistic people in the world! They act as though the entire world wants to know whether they are gay, straight, or other and they can't wait to tell us. Well guess what people, we don't want to know! And your insistence on telling us is a major annoyance; why can't you keep your business to yourselves?

And please, do not act surprised when others react negatively to you and your lifestyle! If you didn't want to deal with any negative reaction, then you should have kept your business out of the street! You want everyone to know what you do, and who you do it with then be prepared to take the backlash that comes with it.

And before anyone goes off and acts like I live in some cloistered world and have never dealt with gays, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. I have had coworkers that were some of the most outrageous gays you ever wanted to see, and they ended up as friends of mine. I have family members that were gay, and they were never my gay cousins; they were simply my cousins. And one of the most stable relationships I have ever seen in my life is that of a couple of gay men that were together when I was a kid of about 8 years old and are still together now. The thing about them, though, was the fact that they felt no need to announce to the world that they were gay. They simply lived their lives the way they wanted to, they didn't ask anyone for permission and never expected to get everyone to approve of them. They spent their time living life and not trying to force themselves on the rest of the community.

I just wish that the gay lobby, and individual gays in many cases, would just take that approach. Live your life, and leave me out of it. The whole world does not need, nor cares to know, what your sexual orientation is. Maybe if all of the "Look at Me!" tactics were discarded, and all of the attempts to force others to accept the gay lifestyle were abandoned maybe more acceptance would be forthcoming. But this continuing narcissism only leads to more resentment from heterosexuals who feel that they are being coerced into accepting 'alternative' lifestyles. How about focusing more on just being a person, and less on being a gay person?

I bet that wold gain you more acceptance than to continuing to shout "Look at Me!" at every opportunity. Just something to think about.

With the installation of General David Petraeus as the new commander of US forces in Iraq, and the President's decision to go ahead with his 'surge' in Iraq, I believe we have come to a critical point in this war. President Bush has rejected, some would say too late, the minimalist philosophy of Donald Rumsfeld and has adopted a modified version of the famed "Powell Doctrine". With the influx of troops in and around Baghdad we may finally be getting down to business.

There are many different ideas  in conservative circles about how this war should have been fought, whether the tactics have been the right ones, and whether we have had the correct strategy in Iraq to win. The beauty of our debate, though, has been that at the heart of it all has been the desire to achieve a victory. We have long since stopped arguing about the causes and justifications for war and have instead spent our time trying to figure out how to succeed; you see, we know the stakes and realize the true importance of the mission at hand.

Contrast that to the endless "debate" among the Democrats about things that cannot be changed. They waste valuable time and resources jawjacking about why went into Iraq, and they all like to claim they were mislead in some way. And off course the media allows them to get away with that foolishness because they are just as invested in the defeat of President Bush and his policies as the Democrat Party.

But I think, and hope, that the President has come up with a plan that will work. We have tried the minimalist approach with varying degrees of success, now we'll try a different approach. I believe that if we build up the number of troops and unite their hands, we can make a big move towards ending some of the conflict in and around Baghdad. It is also nice to see the protective mantle being lifted from Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Militia making them fair game.  If we crush them I believe that will go a long way towards pacifying a large part of the city.

So to General Petraeus and the men under his command I wish them godspeed, and give 'em hell! You have our prayers and our support, no matter what!

I was listening to the Rush Limbaugh program yesterday and I found myself doing something that I don't usually do, disagree with the host. In this case, the host was Roger Hedgecock who was filling in for the vacationing Rush and the topic was the dearth of role models in public life. Hedgecock was going on about the story of the obviously disturbed astronaut who drove cross country to confront another astronaut over a man that is married to neither of them...you have all seen the story by now. What Roger was saying that got me talking to the radio in my car was when he asserted that the actions of this one woman was going to forever taint the image of the space program and those people that qualify to be astronauts, and then he went on a tear about how there are no role models left and began to cite the instances of teachers abusing their students and the rash of postal worker shootings as examples, and how much politicians have lost respect over the years.

While Roger was right to an extent, I believe that his fundamental point was flawed. He is doing what so many people, including conservatives, are prone to doing these days. He is painting with the broadest possible brush and in so doing is managing to smear everyone.

While the antics of this one astronaut look bad, in my view that does not taint the entire space program! this one woman does not diminish the careers of people like Sally Ride, John Glenn, Buzz Aldrin, or the late Ron McNair; these men and women are still worthy of respect and adulation for what they accomplished and are still people that parents can use as examples of what working hard and following your dreams can get you in life.

Likewise, while there are plenty of knuckleheads in professional sports, they are overshadowed by a bevy of good guys in the games. For every Ron Artest in the NBA  who acts mostly out of selfishness and irresponsibility, you will find many more people like Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, and even Carmelo Anthony. These are guys that give their time, efforts, and money to make the communities that they live and work in better for everyone involved. Although the media will chase a story about a player firing a gun in the air at a night club, or a story about a player using drugs, those are not the only stories out there. There are good guys in sports, we just need to take the time to recognize them.

Also, while most see politics as a dirty business filled with sleazy players, there are good people involved in the process. For every Mark Foley that comes to light, there are people like Orrin Hatch, Rick Santorum, and even a guy like Harold Ford Jr. While we may not agree with the politics of these men, they are all basically good men trying to do the best that they can for the country. But instead of applauding them, we fixate on the most reprehensible people in the field and act as though they are the norm. If there are no role models in politics, it is because we choose not to see them!

Further, for every teacher that abuses a child, for every one that claims to be "in love" with some teenager, there are thousands that freely give of their personal time and money to have na impact on the lives of their students. There are teachers all over who give encouragement to children, who show concern for them, who go the extra mile to see their students succeed. We cannot lose sight of these teachers and their work in the haze of the media portrayals of the worst of the lot as typical of the profession.

There are role models out there for our kids to look up to, we just have to be willing to ignore the media clutter and find them. Don't fall for the idea that all athletes are bad guys, that no politicians can be trusted, or that our teachers are just predators in disguise because it's just not so. There are good people out there, people that are worthy of being role models. We just need to celebrate them as much as the media shows us the other side. They deserve it.

A few days ago I was talking to my mother on the phone, and the conversation turned to politics (an unusual topic for us), specifically what Barak Obama was all about. My mom wanted to know what was it that made Obama think that he was qualified to be President, and she wondered why it is that the Black establishment has not really warmed to him yet. Now I am going to tell you why I think that Obama-mania is not exactly sweeping the Black community.

Others have already noted and explained that Jessie Jackson and Al "Do" Sharpton are not on board with Obama because he represents a threat to them, and others feel that he has not paid homage to the leftist lean of the "civil rights" establishment. I must agree that Al and Jessie probably see him as a threat to their stranglehold on "black leadership", and I agree that Obama hasn't been as openly left as many other blacks in the government, like Maxine Waters or Elijah Cummings. But make no mistake, you do not rise that high in national politics as a Black Democrat without being left of center...Barak has just been able to camouflage it better than most!

I believe that the real reason that Barak has not really taken off in the Black community is that he isn't Black like me. What I mean by that is that Barak Obama does not have all of the cultural and racial legacies that Blacks born here in America have. While Barak may know of the Civil Rights Movement, and may have a great appreciation of it he does not really own  it like we do. American Blacks were directly impacted by the movement and it may be hard for someone that had no real stake in it to truly understand the depth of the struggle.

Also, Barak is not from here, and that matters. There is a feeling that Barak is not really one of us, that he is from somewhere else and is trying to become one of us. His family history is different from the histories of most Black folks in this country; he has lived all over the world in several different cultures, while we have spent our lives trying to define just what out culture is as both Blacks and Americans. Obama just does not have that frame of reference of struggling to "find" himself in relation to the dominant culture in America that Black Americans do.

I guess what I'm getting at is that Barak Obama just seems foreign to many Blacks in this country, and it is hard for many of us to connect with him. He just seems too smooth, too packaged, too much of a political product for us to willingly embrace him. We all (black and white) like our politicians to have a human side, to have a few rough edges and Barak just doesn't have that. And that is why I think that he isn't going gangbusters in the Black community.

He's just not Black like me.