Category Archives: Symbols
Presidents Without Borders
Obama pronounced us not defined by our borders and promptly joined Mexican President Felipe Calderon in trashing Arizona for its immigration law. Senator Arlen Specter, now spurned by both democrats and republicans, doesn’t find himself bound by much of anything. At the end of Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999, Specter relied on Scottish Law to vote “not proved”
Greek Bail Out
Unfortunately, the real Greek Chorus, public union workers in the streets of Athens, sang a different tune – Burn Down The Banks! To that end they sacrificed 3 lives. A small price to pay to preserve a way of life that includes a 2 month pay bonus every year and a full salary pension pension at 60. Go here for more Greek geek from David Ignatius.
Comedy Central
I like this column by Diana West about the South Park threats. In it Trey Parker and Matt Stone point out that “if everyone had done what they normally do in news organizations, which would have been to print the cartoons, they could have rallied together”. Instead, the guy who drew Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, Kurt Westergaard (warning: the video link contains an image of The Prophet) (even worse warning: it contains subtitles) was” left hanging out to dry”.
This has always been my complaint about the Danish cartoon crisis. By submitting to intimidation by Islamic extremists (an influential minority in a billion person religion) and not showing the cartoons, which were the basis of a major news story, a sliver of Sharia law was introduced to the U.S. A bunch of thugs insisted the image of The Prophet may not be displayed and so, for the most part, it came to pass.
If you’re off the grid and haven’t heard about the South Park episode you’re probably not reading this either, but just in case, here is the story in the L.A. Times. And here’s a Huffington Post piece featuring a video of Jon Stewart sort of taking on his bosses at Comedy Central (warning: bad words).
Tiger’s Happy Place
The good news is Tiger says he doesn’t exploit women anymore. The bad news is he exploits his dead dad in a recent Nike commercial. The spot brought to mind another truly mythical golfer with self-control issues – Happy Gilmore. Happy channels his father figure, Chubb, in that movie’s final scene (fast forward to the 3:22 mark).
