The Blue Grotto

Evolution 101: Liberals and Conservatives. . .

     Thanks to Trish B. for this:

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Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups - Liberals and Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That’s how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q’s and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement. Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girliemen.

Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn’t fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Ø Here ends today’s lesson in world history.

It Would Be Impossible to Overstate the Excellence of the HBO Series The Wire. . . .

     I'm in the middle of watching Season One of the HBO series The Wire.  I don't know where to start, except to say that this show is at least on par with The Sopranos when it comes to intense, realistic drama.

     The show centers on the struggle between Baltimore police and the powerful and violent drug dealers in the projects.  There's the elusive drug kingpin, his righthand man, his mid-level nephew dealer, several low-level teenage dealers, a team of special narcotics detectives, a judge, politicians, heroin addicts, and a host of other characters that weave in and out of the story.

     First of all, you can't believe these guys are acting.  Couldn't be better.  Most of all, for the first time EVER on the screen, I feel like I know what life is like for these guys in the real world.  There are scenes that are so realistic (thankfully without the popular, annoying, over-used, shaky-camera routine) that you get as freaked out as you would by watching the events unfold in real life.

     I guarantee you that if William Shakespeare were alive today, he would name The Wire as perhaps the best dramatic writing and production anywhere in the film and television universe.  If you group it together with The Sopranos, it's not even close.

     The show does a superb job of unpacking the essence of the characters in a realistic, empathetic fashion without falling into the trap of excusing particular actions.  What I mean is that you really, really get to see that the mid-level drug dealer who commits murder or the rock-bottom heroin addict who has abandoned his wife and children to slowly kill himself in the alleyways of the projects are both as human as you or I.  These are human beings who make horrible and evil choices, and they shouldn't be surprised by the often violent fates that befall them, but they are as human as the next guy.

     Last night I watched a scene in which an undercover drug buy goes bad and a cop gets shot, and it was hands-down the most intense scene I've ever seen in film or TV.  The portrayal of the fear and panic that grips the fellow officers of the female undercover cop as the action turns sour is shockingly real.

     The creator and main writer of the show was a Baltimore police detective for twenty years.

       I've attached here a link to a very cool scene in which one of the main characters, the mid-level dealer, explains the game of chess to two of his underlings.  Very cool scene indeed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HUlTKvDUI

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     Enjoy!

Report: Everyone in Hollywood Great Friends

October 26, 2007

LOS ANGELES — A study released today by the University of California, Los Angeles is sending shockwaves through the social, behavioral, and publicity sciences, after finding that everyone in Hollywood is close personal friends with everyone else in Hollywood.

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Cameron Diaz, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Denzel Washingon all gather for a game of Monopoly at Tony Hopkins' place, like they do every Sunday.

"The evidence shows that our nation's show-business capital is a town of virtually boundless goodwill and camaraderie, where the backstabbing, ego-rivalry, and grudge-holding common to the rest of society do not exist," said UCLA sociology professor Gina Carlisle, lead author of the five-year, 700-page study. "The entire region is a veritable utopia of deep, abiding interpersonal affection and mutual respect."

Additionally, the report found that 98 percent of Hollywood residents "love [their friends'] work."

The findings, published this month in the journal American Psychologist, were based on information culled from DVD commentary tracks, promotional junket footage, talk show appearances, more than 1,500 behind-the-scenes magazine profiles, and hundreds of poolside cocktail party conversations.

"I love David Caruso," said Caruso's CSI: Miami costar Khandi Alexander, one of thousands of celebrity best friends quoted in the study. "He's just a great guy—always joking around on the set, making the crew laugh, and just being an all-around wonderful person. At first I thought it would be intimidating to work with such an iconic star, but after a few days, I thought of him as a great friend."

But the intense friendships that run through the Hollywood community also extend to those beyond the red-carpet elite, the study found. 

"Even persons with relatively limited connections to the Hollywood hierarchy, such as caterers and valet attendants, regularly cited such A-list celebrities as George Clooney as their 'good friends,'" said UCLA's Carlisle, who herself described Clooney as "a friend." "No one is excluded from the near-universal circle of intimacy and brotherhood that surrounds the city."

"It is a truly egoless culture," she added.

According to the study, friendships formed in Hollywood are stronger, more passionate, and more meaningful than any friendships yet measured.

"While we were making Transformers, the whole cast and crew were like family," actress Megan Fox said in an Access Hollywood episode cited by the study. "I would totally love to work with those people again if the decision is ever made to do a sequel. That's how much those friendships mean to me."

Hollywood friendships are also longer lasting, researchers found.

Producer Gil Netter, also quoted in the study, expressed these sentiments about some of his many best friends: "When we did Dude [Where's My Car?], Ashton [Kutcher], Jennifer [Garner], and Seann [William Scott] were just on the verge of exploding. Since then, they've all become much bigger stars, but to me they're still just the same great friends of mine they always were."

The study's authors say if research continues, the principles of social interaction found in Hollywood could, one day, serve as an example to the rest of humanity of how to live together in harmony and universal love.

"Bad-mouthing others' work, looking down on those who earn less money than oneself, making insulting assumptions about the amount of plastic surgery others have had—none of these things happen in Hollywood," Carlisle said. "It is a city of total and unconditional respect, both for the integrity of everyone's creative endeavors, and for everyone personally, as human beings."

Added Carlisle: "If every community could interact with the same genuine compassion and goodwill that Hollywood has somehow achieved, the world would be a much better place."

Weekend Casualwear Do's and Don'ts!

     I happened to get a sneak peak at the upcoming 2008 Juan Seitz casualwear line for weekend relaxation:

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     And here's a glimpse into the Spring 2008 Amorosi Collection:

Here Are Some Words of Wisdom. . . .

     Thanks to Trish B. for these:

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1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

5. Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.

6. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

8. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

9. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

13. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.

14. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

16. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

17. Duct tape is like 'The Force'. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

18. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

19. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving.

20. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

21. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

22. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

This Guy's Going for the 2-for-1 Deal. . . .

What Would Martin Luther King Think of This Political Correctness Perversity?

     In his "I Have a Dream" speech forty-four years ago, MLK dreamed that one day people wouldn't be judged by the color of their skin. 

     What would he think of the University of Delaware's positively sick program of indoctrination for incoming students?  If you are white, I'll bet you didn't realize that your chances of being a racist are not 99%, not 99.99%, but 100%.

     Here's a quote from the Delaware playbook: 

     "A racist: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists. . . ."

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Jewish World Review

Nov. 7, 2007

Academic Cesspools II

By Walter Williams

The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a frontline organization in the battle against academic suppression of free speech and thought, released information about what's going on at the University of Delaware, and probably at other universities as well, that should send chills up the spines of parents of college-age students. The following excerpts are taken from the University of Delaware's Office of Residence Life Diversity Facilitation Training document. The full document is available at www.thefire.org.

Students living in the University's housing, roughly 7,000, are taught: "A racist: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities or acts of discrimination. (This does not deny the existence of such prejudices, hostilities, acts of rage or discrimination.)" This gem of wisdom suggests that by virtue of birth alone, not conduct, if you're white, you're a racist.

If you're white and disagree with racial quotas, preferences and openly racist statements made by blacks to whites, and you call it reverse racism or reverse discrimination, here's the document's message for you: "Reverse racism: A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege. Those in denial use the term reverse racism to refer to hostile behavior by people of color toward whites, and to affirmative action policies, which allegedly give 'preferential treatment' to people of color over whites. In the U.S., there is no such thing as 'reverse racism.'" I agree with the last sentence. Racism is racism irrespective of color.

A white University of Delaware student might not have an ounce of ill will toward any race. According to the university's document, he's a racist anyway. "A non-racist: A non-term. The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism, to maintain an aura of innocence in the face of racial oppression, and to shift responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called 'blaming the victim'). Responsibility for perpetuating and legitimizing a racist system rests both on those who actively maintain it, and on those who refuse to challenge it. Silence is consent."

Then the document asks, "Have you ever heard a well-meaning white person say, 'I'm not a member of any race except the human race?' What she usually means by this statement is that she doesn't want to perpetuate racial categories by acknowledging that she is white. This is an evasion of responsibility for her participation in a system based on supremacy for white people."

I doubt whether this racist nonsense is restricted to the university's housing program. Students are probably taught similar nonsense in their sociology, psychology and political science classes. FIRE's outing of the University of Delaware's racist program elicited this official response from Vice President Michael Gilbert, "The central mission of the University, and of the program, is to cultivate both learning and the free exchange of ideas." (According to thefire.org, as a result of public exposure, and without condemning this racist program, on Nov. 2 President Patrick Harker ordered the mandatory re-education halted pending a review.)

It's a safe bet the university did not highlight this kind of learning experience to parents and students in its recruitment efforts. Nor were generous donors and alumni informed that they are racists by birth. I'd also guess that this kind of "education" was kept under wraps from the state legislators who use taxpayer money to fund the university.

Happy Thanksgiving from Everyone at Blue Grotto Worldwide Headquarters!

Which Do You Think Was More Important to the Very Survival and Eventual Prosperity of the Pilgrims, Warm and Fuzzy Ideas About "Sharing" or Concrete Laws About "Property Rights?"

     I'd like to write a massive essay about this topic, but I am late for Thanksgiving dinner.  Also, the column below says it all. 

     Ever wonder if socialism might work well in a smaller, more-manageable community of people who care about each other?  The Pilgrims tried it, and you know what happened?  They almost starved to death.

     This is one of the best columns the Grotto has come across in weeks. 

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The Tragedy of the Commons
By John Stossel
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. "Isn't sharing wonderful?" say the teachers.

They miss the point.

Because of sharing, the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.

The failure of Soviet communism is only the latest demonstration that freedom and property rights, not sharing, are essential to prosperity. The earliest European settlers in America had a dramatic demonstration of that lesson, but few people today know it.

When the Pilgrims first settled the Plymouth Colony, they organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share everything equally, work and produce.

They nearly all starved.

Why? When people can get the same return with a small amount of effort as with a large amount, most people will make little effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. Some ate rats, dogs, horses and cats. This went on for two years.

"So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue the next year also, if not some way prevented," wrote Gov. William Bradford in his diary. The colonists, he said, "began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length after much debate of things, [I] (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land."

The people of Plymouth moved from socialism to private farming. The results were dramatic.

"This had very good success," Bradford wrote, "for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many. "

Because of the change, the first Thanksgiving could be held in November 1623.

What Plymouth suffered under communalism was what economists today call the tragedy of the commons. But the problem has been known since ancient Greece. As Aristotle noted, "That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it."

When action is divorced from consequences, no one is happy with the ultimate outcome. If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else. Soon, the pot is empty and will not be refilled -- a bad situation even for the earlier takers.

What private property does -- as the Pilgrims discovered -- is connect effort to reward, creating an incentive for people to produce far more. Then, if there's a free market, people will trade their surpluses to others for the things they lack. Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.

Secure property rights are the key. When producers know that their future products are safe from confiscation, they will take risks and invest. But when they fear they will be deprived of the fruits of their labor, they will do as little as possible.

That's the lost lesson of Thanksgiving.

John Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong.

You'll Start to See Lots of Previews for This Christmas Day Release. . . .

Charlie Wilson's War (2003)

By George Crile

A scan of the Grotto Literary Dept. Editor's own copy

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     On Christmas Day, Universal will release the Mike Nichols-directed, Aaron Sorkin-penned movie of this nonfiction page-turner, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.  Unfortunately, I find Tom Hanks to be well on his way to the annoying category of super-actors (Hoffman, Pacino) rather than the cool, reliable, professional, watchable category (Denzel, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio).  And Julia Roberts, while excellent in Erin Brokovich, is not on the Top 20 list of best actresses. [I can also only imagine that with that director, that writer, and those stars, the movie will undoubtedly cast America in a silly, negative light.] 

     Enough of the movie.  Read the book.  It's the crazy story of how an anonymous, insignificant Texas Congressman and a CIA agent orchestrated the funding of the wildly successful Cold War campaign of the mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

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As Long as You Ban Snowball Fights, Why Not Freak Out About "Vintage" Sesame Street Episodes?

     Here's one that CFC IV caught in the New York Times Magazine.  Yet another clue that the United States may decline and fall due to the spreading school- and parent-sponsored sensitivity and self-esteem fetish.

     The fact that these old Sesame Street DVDs are seriously, humorlessly labeled as "intended for grownups" causes me to find myself in the too-frequent state where I have to decide whether to laugh or cry.  I think I may do neither and just start throwing items against walls. 

     If you're worried that your kid might be scerwed up by viewing Cookie Monster's "Alistair Cookie" on "Monsterpiece Theater" smoking a pipe, I suggest that your child has far scarier things to worry about, like having a total loser for a parent. . . .

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Sweeping the Clouds Away

By Virginia Heffernan

from New York Times Magazine

November 18, 2007

Sunny days! The earliest episodes of “Sesame Street” are available on digital video! Break out some Keebler products, fire up the DVD player and prepare for the exquisite pleasure-pain of top-shelf nostalgia.

Just don’t bring the children. According to an earnest warning on Volumes 1 and 2, “Sesame Street: Old School” is adults-only: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

Say what? At a recent all-ages home screening, a hush fell over the room. “What did they do to us?” asked one Gen-X mother of two, finally. The show rolled, and the sweet trauma came flooding back. What they did to us was hard-core. Man, was that scene rough. The masonry on the dingy brownstone at 123 Sesame Street, where the closeted Ernie and Bert shared a dismal basement apartment, was deteriorating. Cookie Monster was on a fast track to diabetes. Oscar’s depression was untreated. Prozacky Elmo didn’t exist.

Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times. Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

Live-action cows also charge the 1969 screen — cows eating common grass, not grain improved with hormones. Cows are milked by plain old farmers, who use their unsanitary hands and fill one bucket at a time. Elsewhere, two brothers risk concussion while whaling on each other with allergenic feather pillows. Overweight layabouts, lacking touch-screen iPods and headphones, jockey for airtime with their deafening transistor radios. And one of those radios plays a late-’60s news report — something about a “senior American official” and “two billion in credit over the next five years” — that conjures a bleak economic climate, with war debt and stagflation in the offing.

The old “Sesame Street” is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for softies born since 1998, when the chipper “Elmo’s World” started. Anyone who considers bull markets normal, extracurricular activities sacrosanct and New York a tidy, governable place — well, the original “Sesame Street” might hurt your feelings.

I asked Carol-Lynn Parente, the executive producer of “Sesame Street,” how exactly the first episodes were unsuitable for toddlers in 2007. She told me about Alistair Cookie and the parody “Monsterpiece Theater.” Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, used to appear with a pipe, which he later gobbled. According to Parente, “That modeled the wrong behavior” — smoking, eating pipes — “so we reshot those scenes without the pipe, and then we dropped the parody altogether.”

Which brought Parente to a feature of “Sesame Street” that had not been reconstructed: the chronically mood-disordered Oscar the Grouch. On the first episode, Oscar seems irredeemably miserable — hypersensitive, sarcastic, misanthropic. (Bert, too, is described as grouchy; none of the characters, in fact, is especially sunshiney except maybe Ernie, who also seems slow.) “We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now,” she said.

Snuffleupagus is visible only to Big Bird; since 1985, all the characters can see him, as Big Bird’s old protestations that he was not hallucinating came to seem a little creepy, not to mention somewhat strained. As for Cookie Monster, he can be seen in the old-school episodes in his former inglorious incarnation: a blue, googly-eyed cookievore with a signature gobble (“om nom nom nom”). Originally designed by Jim Henson for use in commercials for General Foods International and Frito-Lay, Cookie Monster was never a righteous figure. His controversial conversion to a more diverse diet wouldn’t come until 2005, and in the early seasons he comes across a Child’s First Addict.

The biggest surprise of the early episodes is the rural — agrarian, even — sequences. Episode 1 spends a stoned time warp in the company of backlighted cows, while they mill around and chew cud. This pastoral scene rolls to an industrial voiceover explaining dairy farms, and the sleepy chords of Joe Raposo’s aimless masterpiece, “Hey Cow, I See You Now.” Chewing the grass so green/Making the milk/Waiting for milking time/Waiting for giving time/Mmmmm.

Oh, what’s that? Right, the trance of early “Sesame Street” and its country-time sequences. In spite of the show’s devotion to its “target child,” the “4-year-old inner-city black youngster” (as The New York Times explained in 1979), the first episodes join kids cavorting in amber waves of grain — black children, mostly, who must be pressed into service as the face of America’s farms uniquely on “Sesame Street.”

In East Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1978, 95 percent of households with kids ages 2 to 5 watched “Sesame Street.” The figure was even higher in Washington. Nationwide, though, the number wasn’t much lower, and was largely determined by the whims of the PBS affiliates: 80 percent in houses with young children. The so-called inner city became anywhere that “Sesame Street” played, because the Children’s Television Workshop declared the inner city not a grim sociological reality but a full-color fantasy — an eccentric scene, framed by a box and far removed from real farmland and city streets alike.

The concept of the “inner city” — or “slums,” as The Times bluntly put it in its first review of “Sesame Street” — was therefore transformed into a kind of Xanadu on the show: a bright, no-clouds, clear-air place where people bopped around with monsters and didn’t worry too much about money, cleanliness or projecting false cheer. The Upper West Side, hardly a burned-out ghetto, was said to be the model.

People on “Sesame Street” had limited possibilities and fixed identities, and (the best part) you weren’t expected to change much. The harshness of existence was a given, and no one was proposing that numbers and letters would lead you “out” of your inner city to Elysian suburbs. Instead, “Sesame Street” suggested that learning might merely make our days more bearable, more interesting, funnier. It encouraged us, above all, to be nice to our neighbors and to cultivate the safer pleasures that take the edge off — taking baths, eating cookies, reading. Don’t tell the kids.

Happy Birthday, Luke G.!

     Longtime crony Mr. J. L. Grant celebrates a birthday today.  Happy Birthday, Luke!  Not only were Luke and I housemates senior year at Georgetown (along with Sr. Juan Seitz and assorted other characters), but we also lived together in the most sought-after building in all of Manhattan from 1993-1996: The Colorado.  Located on the "tree-lined streets of the Upper East Side,"  as the misleading brochure for this all-rental building so eloquently put it, it sat right on the intersection of 86th Street and Third Avenue, which Grotto readers will instantly recognize as one of the lowest-rolling centers of activity in all five boroughs.  The building featured apartments on floors 4 through 36, and yes, Luke and I lived in 4C, cementing our status as extra-low-rollers in a building exclusively inhabited by low-rollers.

     Here's the Birthday Boy:

 

"Lure Manny Ramirez Away from Ballpark with Succulent Ham"

     This one's a few weeks late, but definitely worth a post. . . .

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This Serving of Self-Esteem-Obsessed, Sensitivity-Consumed Crap May Have Finally Overflowed the Diaper of Ultra-PC Regulations. . . .

Thanks to Mike Fishkin for flagging this top-notch entry for the "Political Correctness Files."  Apparently the idiotic anti-snowball-throwing-policy-enforcing morons advising Shore Country Day School have also been hired by the city of Sydney, Australia.  Again, these soft-soled-shoe-wearing halfwits fail to make the distinction between things in life that are "Their Problem" vs. things in life that are "Somebody Else's Problem."  I suggest that taking offense at a Santa saying "Ho Ho Ho," or having a nervous breakdown because you're worried that your kid will get beaned by a snowball at recess, resulting in a life-ruining loss of self-esteem, or taking offense at a bar displaying booze bottles, or taking offense at our nation's currency saying "In God We Trust" are all examples of things that are "Your Problem."  Not the city's problem, not the courts' problem, not the school's problem.  If you are the bitter, humorless, angry type to get worked up about this kind of stuff, try a strategy that's been working for years for many of your brethren:  Keep it to yourself and be unhappy in the privacy of your own miserable existence.

 

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November 14, 2007

SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.

Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.

One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.

"Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.

"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they," she told the Telegraph.

"Leave Santa alone."

A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself. 

Overfunded Public School Forced To Add Jazz Band

November 14, 2006

MANALAPAN, NJ — Benjamin Harrison Middle School faculty members regretfully announced Tuesday that, despite their best efforts to prevent it, the school simply had too much state and federal funding to avoid adding a jazz ensemble to its music program.

"We did not want it to come to this," principal David DeCarlo said after introducing students to Mr. Metheny, an award-winning jazz guitarist and the new school music teacher. "The children are the ones who are going to suffer. Especially little Sammy Orlovsky, who will have to play those drums where instead of using drumsticks you tap the cymbals with tiny brushes."

The school plans to use its remaining $22.1 million budget to add a sculpture wing to the art department, triple janitors' salaries, and purchase a second computer.

The Best in Weekend Casual Elegance. . .

     Not sure what to wear to the next company picnic or touch football game?  Thanks to a fashion recommendation from Grotto friend Trent S., you're set:

Happy Late Birthday, Johnny Wigglesworth!

     Saturday was Johnny Wigglesworth's birthday.  Here are a few pics of the former Navy Commander, who now flies for JetBlue:

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Stacey and Johnny:

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Christianity vs. Atheism

     Here is a thought-provoking column that approaches the issue from a cultural perspective rather than in terms of faith and doctrine.  This way, D'Souza sort of meets the atheists on their own turf.  I think the man from Tonga hits the nail on the head. . . .

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What Has Atheism Done for Us?
By Dinesh D'Souza
Wednesday, October 31, 2007

My new book What’s So Great About Christianity, just out, is already an amazon.com bestseller, a Wall Street Journal bestseller and No. 16 on the New York Times bestseller list. On Saturday C-Span broadcast my debate with God Is Not Great author Christopher Hitchens. Many people have commented that this is the best debate on the topic of Christianity v. Atheism that has yet been held. If you haven’t seen it, you can find the debate on my website dineshdsouza.com. Following the debate, AOL posted the video on its main page, and asked people to make up their minds and vote on who won. Modesty prevents me from disclosing the answer.

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, watched the debate and reported with some agitation that the audience seemed to be applauding more for me than for Hitchens. Dawkins commented on his website that the New York crowd must have been a "dopey" lot. But if you listen to the debate, you will see that both atheists and believers were well represented. The audience applause was initially stronger for Hitchens, and only as the debate went on did it trend markedly toward me. So is Dawkins suggesting that the audience was very intelligent to start with but became more "dopey" as the debate went on? More likely we are seeing evidence of the "Dawkins delusion," an unwillingness to use good sense and face facts when Dawkins' own belief system is called into question.

One of the most interesting questions in the debate was posed to Hitchens by a man from Tonga. Before the Christians came to Tonga, he said, the place was a mess. Even cannibalism was widespread. The Christians stopped this practice and brought to Tonga the notion that each person has a soul and God loves everyone equally. The man from Tonga asked Hitchens, "So what do you have to offer us?" Hitchens was taken aback, and responded with a learned disquisition on cannibalism in various cultures. But he clearly missed the intellectual and moral force of the man's question. The man was asking why the Tongans, who had gained so much from Christianity, should reject it in favor of atheism.

In my response, I noted that when the missionaries came to India, they sometimes converted people by force. Even so, many Indians rushed on their own to embrace the faith of the foreigners. And why? Because they were born into the low caste of the Hindus. As long as they remained Hindus, there was no escape; even their descendants were condemned to the lowest rungs of humanity. By fleeing into the arms of the missionaries, the low-caste Hindus found themselves welcomed as Christian brothers. They discovered the ideal of equal dignity in the eyes of God.

If we look at the history of Western civilization, we find that Christianity has illuminated the greatest achievements of the culture. Read the new atheist books and make a list of the institutions and values that Hitchens and Dawkins and the others cherish the most. They value the idea of the individual, and the right to dissent, and science as an autonomous enterprise, and representative democracy, and human rights, and equal rights for women and racial minorities, and the movement to end slavery, and compassion as a social virtue. But when you examine history you find that all of these values came into the world because of Christianity. If Christianity did not exist, these values would not exist in the form they do now. So there is indeed something great about Christianity, and the honest atheist should be willing to admit this.

By contrast, does it make any sense to say, as Hitchens does in his book's subtitle, that "religion poisons everything"? Religion didn't poison Dante or Milton or Donne or Michelangelo or Raphael or Titian or Bach! Religon didn’t poison those unnamed architectural geniuses who built the great Gothic cathedrals. Religion didn’t poison the American founders who were for the most part not Deist but Christian. Religion didn't poison the anti-slavery campaigns of William Lloyd Garrison or William Wilberforce, or the civil rights activism of the Reverend Martin Luther King. The real question to ask is, what does atheism offer humanity? In Tonga, as in America, the answer appears to be: Nothing.

Bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza's new book What's So Great About Christianity has just been released. D’Souza is the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Check Out These Pics of the Champs Celebrating on the Way Back from Denver to Boston. . . .

World Series MVP Mike Lowell with the trophy:

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Big Papi:

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Big-time Sox star Jacoby Ellsbury, who was as unkown to the world this time last year as you or I:

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Manny looks like he got his jacket at JC Penney, but we'll let it slide because he's Manny:

New Hallmark Line Addresses Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

This Utah Bureaucrat Needs to Be Punched in the Nose.

     There must be a vast conspiracy to create a whole generation of weak, whimpering losers (that's the most accurate word).  Check out this newspaper letter blasting the Utah booze commissioner for wanting bars to "cover up" the bottles in case some featherweight crybaby is "offended" by them. 

     I don't know where to start.  First of all, the ability of people to use basic intellectual tools like reason and logic to distinguish between things that are "their problem" and things that are "someone else's problem" is on the way out, since so many schools seem to opt for letting students "go with the flow" and decide how to educate themselves rather than sitting them down in a chair and teaching them something.

     I want to meet somebody who is "offended" by a bottle of Stoli lurking out of the corner of his eye as he sits in a restaurant or bar.  The real question is, who could this person possibly be having dinner with?  Who wants to hang out with somebody this awful?  Well, the "offended-by-the-sight-of-booze" guy is probably dining with his militant atheist friend who is shocked and appalled that his kid might have to sit in silence for a few moments at school during a prayer.  Or maybe he's dining with the dumb administrator at my own old school, Shore Country Day, who decided that ALL snowball throwing shall be punishable. 

     You heard me.  At my old school, if you are a third grade boy trying to decompress at recess with your buddies, you may not, under any circumstances, make and throw a snowball.  I guess playing with toy guns or swords, like boys have done for literally thousands of years, is such an absurd idea to today's parents that if you were to bring it up, the whole place would just collapse in laughter.  People would be slapping you on the back for thinking of such a hilarious, off-the-wall scenario as a little boy playing Cops & Robbers or Cowboys & Indians (er. . . maybe that's Cowboys & Native Americans. . . .).

     Another possible dinner companion for this loser might be the person whose kid gets nipped at once by a Yorkshire Terrier on West Beach in Beverly Farms, where I grew up.  That's right: now it is illegal to walk on the beach with your dog off-leash, year-round.  If I had just bought a beautiful house in B. Farms and arrived in town with my family and dogs, and I found out that some drama queen (male or female) freaked out because a dog snarled at his kid, I would have to do what is referred to as "go ballistic."      

     If people who compare the U.S. to Rome are right, and our country declines and falls, I believe it will be because we have produced a whole generation of cream puffs.

This Cat Has Just Heard About Rep. Charlie Rangel's Brilliant New Tax Hike. . . .

To Borrow a Phrase from Global Warming Alarmists, "The Debate Is Over" on Media Bias. . . .

     Thanks to CFC IV for this one.  I saw an interview last year in which Chris Wallace asked his dad, Mike Wallace (age 135), if he thought the media was biased, and Mike Wallace laughed and said that the idea was ridiculous.  What an ass.

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Even Harvard Finds the Media Biased

Investor's Business Daily

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.

Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which "produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans."

The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.

Breaking it down by candidates, the survey found that Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorites. "Obama's front page coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Clinton's was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative."

In stories about Republicans, on the other hand, the tone was positive in only a quarter of the stories; in four in 10 it was negative.

The study also discovered that newspaper stories "tended to be focused more on political matters and less on issues and ideas than the media overall. In all, 71% of newspaper stories concentrated on the 'game,' compared with 63% overall."

Television has a similar problem. Only 10% of TV stories were focused on issues, and here, too, Democrats get the better of it.

Reviewing 154 stories on evening network newscasts over the course of 109 weeknights, the survey found that Democrats were presented in a positive light more than twice as often as they were portrayed as negative. Positive tones for Republicans were detected in less than a fifth of stories while a negative tone was twice as common.

The gap between Democrats and Republicans narrows on cable TV, but it's there nonetheless. Stories about Democrats were positive in more than a third of the cases, while Republicans were portrayed favorably in fewer than 29%. Republican led in unfriendly stories 30.4% to 25.5%.

CNN was the most hostile toward Republicans, MSNBC, surprisingly, the most positive. MSNBC was also the most favorable toward Democrats (47.2%), Fox (36.8%) the most critical.

The anti-GOP attitude also lives on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." There, Democrats were approvingly covered more than a third as often as Republicans. Negative coverage of Democrats was a negligible 5.9%. It seemed to be reserved for Republicans, who were subject to one-fifth of the program's disparaging reports.

Even talk radio, generally considered a bastion of conservatism, has been relatively rough on the GOP. On conservative shows, Obama got more favorable treatment (27.8%) than Rudy Giuliani (25%). Sen. John McCain got a 50% favorability rating while Mitt Romney led the three GOP candidates with 66.7%.

The PEG-Shorenstein effort is only the latest to conclude that the mainstream media tilt left. Others include Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter's groundbreaking 1986 book "The Media Elite"; "A Measure of Media Bias," a 2005 paper written by professors from UCLA and the University of Missouri; and Bernard Goldberg's two books, "Bias" and "Arrogance." All underscore the media's leftward leanings.

The media, of course, insist they are careful to keep personal opinions out of their coverage. But the facts tell another story — one that can't be edited or spiked.

"Good Boy!" Pic of the Day

     My pal Marty M. (Blue Grotto Beverly Hills Bureau Chief) was at baggage claim at LAX recently and spotted a beautiful boxer.  You have to understand that Marty is a boxer fanatic.  He grew up with a boxer named Webster.  When we lived together in college he got us a super-cool brindle boxer puppy named Spanky.  Marty now has an old lady of a boxer named Buttercup and a young, supersized male named Rum. 

     When I lived in L.A. I became very close friends with both Buttercup and Rum.  I am proud of my closeness to Buttercup, as she is extremely hostile towards men.  It took me a long time to make friends, but we are the best of chums now.

     Upon inquiring about the boxer at the airport, Marty found out that he was a famous stud named Bismarck.  He sent me a pic from the breeder's website (EncoreBoxers.com). 

     Here's Bismarck:

Happy Birthday, Juan Seitz!

     You may have spotted the dashing bachelor Juan L. Seitz crisscrossing NYC any night of the week, rushing from appearance to appearance to satisfy the demands of his many fans.  He's the one in the pleated denim cargo pants, which provide him comfort, mobility, storage space, and an element of attitude and glamour!

     Here he is posing with West Coast Grotto friend Merrilee H. and your Editor:

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     And here he is several hours later. 

     Seitz:  "ML, you've grown tiresome. I'm going to go stand over here with my little crabcake."

     Merrilee:  "Oh good!  Another camera!"

   

      

Fall Classes for Men. . .

     Thanks to Lindsey B. for sending along this one to the Blue Grotto Continuing Education Department:

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Fall Classes for Men at THE ADULT LEARNING Center

Class 1:  How To Fill Up The Ice Cube Trays--Step by Step, with Slide Presentation.

Class 2:  The Toilet Paper Roll--Does It Change Itself?

Class 3:  Is It Possible To Urinate Using The Technique Of Lifting The Seat and Avoiding The Floor, Walls and Nearby Bathtub?--Group Practice.

Class 4:  Fundamental Differences Between The Laundry Hamper and The Floor--Pictures and Explanatory Graphics.

Class 5:  Dinner Dishes--Can They Levitate and Fly Into The Kitchen Sink? Examples on Video.

Class 6:  Loss Of Identity - Losing The Remote To Your Significant Other. Help Line Support and Support Groups.

Class 7:  Learning How To Find Things - Starting With Looking In The Right Places And Not Turning The House Upside Down While Screaming.

Class 8:  Health Watch - Bringing Her Flowers Is Not Harmful To Your Health. Graphics and Audio Tapes.

Class 9:  Real Men Ask For Directions When Lost - Real Life Testimonials.

Class 10:  Is It Genetically Impossible To Sit Quietly While She Parallel Parks? Driving Simulations.

Class 11: How to be the Ideal Shopping Companion -Relaxation Exercises, Meditation and Breathing Techniques.

Class 12:  How to Fight Cerebral Atrophy - Remembering Birthdays, Anniversaries and Other Important Dates and Calling When You're Going To Be Late. Cerebral Shock Therapy Sessions and Full Lobotomies Offered.

Class 13:  The Stove/Oven - What It Is and How It Is Used.  Live Demonstration.

Happy First Birthday to My Goddaughter, Lila!

JC Penney: Maybe It's Depressing Now, But It Was Obviously a Nonstop Party 30 Years Ago!

     You may recall a post from a month or so ago in which I recounted the bleak, cheerless, despair-inducing effects of walking into a JC Penney store. 

     How things have changed.  Check out the following excerpts from a 1977 JC Penney catalog.  These models are offering up outfits that will guarantee you a refreshing lifestyle of 24-hour satisfaction and delight!  Thanks to Grotto friends Johnny D. and Lindsey B. for forwarding to the Fashion Dept.

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     Here's Juan Seitz on his first day of second grade:

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And a young Amo:

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C. Goodman on a Casual Friday at Bear Stearns:

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Nice text: "Colorful Stretch Terry Coordinates" ("terry" as in "Terry Brown"):

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These guys mean business:

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"Your search for value" = "Your search for Pleather crapola:"

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Awesome tie, dude:

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The Churches:

 

Grotto Arts & Leisure Dept. Recommends WE OWN THE NIGHT

I thought this one looked pretty good from the trailer, but it turned out to be excellent.  Written and directed by James Gray, the movie stars Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, and Robert Duvall.  Eva Mendes proves once again that it's entirely possible to get by on looks alone, as she's one of the least charismatic or impressive actresses I can think of. Robert Duvall is as solid as always, and Mark Wahlberg adds to his reputation, as I see it, of being a shrewd and humble actor who chooses to take parts in the best films even if it means playing second or third banana.

     Joaquin Phoenix firmly occupies a spot on the Top Five list of currently-working actors.  He, like his companions in that category Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio, combines a gigantic acting talent with a perfectly chosen range of roles.  This is a good one for him.

     Here's the summary from ComingSoon.net:

  Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) has turned his back on the family business. The popular manager of El Caribe, the legendary Russian-owned nightclub in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach, he has changed his last name and concealed his connection to a long line of distinguished New York cops. For Bobby, every night is a party, as he greets friends and customers or dances with his beautiful Puerto Rican girlfriend, Amada (Eva Mendes), in a haze of cigarette smoke and disco music.

But it's 1988, and New York City's drug trade is escalating. Bobby tries to keep a friendly distance from the Russian gangster who is operating out of the nightclub – a gangster who is being targeted by his brother, Joseph (Mark Wahlberg), an up-and-coming NYPD officer, and his father, Burt (Robert Duvall), the legendary deputy chief of police.

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