Falling Awake

President Bush calls the Virginia Tech mass-murder a reminder “to make sure that when people see somebody or know somebody who is exhibiting abnormal behavior, you do something about it, to suggest that somebody take a look.”  That’s good advice.  Unless the abnormal behavior is displayed by Muslims.  Then you get sued.

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In the wake of the Don Imus firing, BET (Black Entertainment Television) founder Robert Johnson was interviewed on Hardball with Chris Matthews.  BET shows rap videos that use much harsher language than Imus was guilty of using, yet Johnson was happy with the Imus firing:

Don Imus, you know, showed a deep side of racism that exists in this country, that sort of creeps out and then people express surprise.  And I think—I can‘t see how CBS could not let him go. 

Then Mr. Johnson was asked:

I wonder whether you think, as the founder of BET, that you and others in the black community also have a responsibility to look at some of the images on BET, some of the language in rap lyrics, like the word ho, and the b-word and the n-word that is replete in the lyrics of rap music, and say that has to be part of this national conversation as well.

His reply?

I told the record industry, look, guys, if you guys want to stop making these kinds of video, believe me, I have no problems in not showing them.

He’s willing to not show videos that aren’t made!  I’m sure he’ll be featured in the next edition of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African American Achievement!

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Between Al Gore and President Bush, whose home do you guess uses cutting-edge technology to reduce energy consumption?  Yeah, I know, I know.  But pretend it’s not me asking the question.  Now who do you think?  WRONG!  It’s Bush!

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The New York Times (reg. req.) reports on China’s retirement crisis.  It’s the same problem that the US faces, but exacerbated by the one-child law.  I love this quote:

Most troubling to financial experts, the government has used payroll taxes paid by the current generation of workers, who in theory are paying into their individual retirement accounts, to pay pensions for the previous generation.

If the experts are so troubled by this system, why does the Times claim that there is no US Social Security crisis?  The systems are identical.

Also, get this.  The Times wonders whether the crisis can be averted by raising the retirement age.  Unfortunately,

Breaking a lifelong promise and abruptly extending the retirement age would create another large class of malcontents.

Malcontents!  (Like the editorial board of the Times, no doubt.)

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Okay, that was pretty funny, but ScrappleFace actually means to be.  Scott Ott, running with Harry Reid’s pronouncement that the war is lost, reports that Reid clarified his remarks by adding that he “supports the troops who lost the war.”

Anyone in doubt that a senior Democratic senator might actually say this should note that:

CIA analysis of the tape indicates the voice is “almost certainly” Sen. Reid’s and that references to recent events show that the Democrat leader may still be at large, in good health and “substantially in charge” of his network of Democrat senators.

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The great film site Libertas has an analysis of the movie “300,” and the left’s reaction to it, written by novelist Andrew Klavan.  I love this excerpt, where Klavan takes the baby-boomers to task:

They are a weary failure of a generation. Like the British Edwardians before them, they could not live up to the achievements of their elders. So they invented a new set of rules, rules that sounded daring and dangerous and radical, but are in fact puerile, safe and anesthetic. Does western civilization require defense and sacrifice? Well, then ho, ho, ho, western civ has got to go. Does political freedom require responsibility and self-discipline? Well, then we’ll redefine freedom as individual licentiousness. Do other, lesser cultures want to destroy us? Well, then, we’ll join them in blaming America and avoid any unpleasantness. In short, the baby boomers’ leftist philosophy amounts to nothing more than an elaborate rationalization of their own cowardice and a way to dull the pain of the resultant self-disgust.

What do you reallythink, Mr. Klavan?

1. People really say things like, “After all, this is Greenwich!” if a store doesn’t have what they’re looking for.  They really do.
2. The older the women are, the tanner they are.  Or maybe vice versa.
3. Parking meters cost a quarter for twenty lousy minutes.
4. The cops who direct traffic on Greenwich Avenue are less friendly than your average stoplight.
5. People feel free to bring large dogs into stores.
6. Teenage girls don’t wear enough clothes here, either.
7. People here want to be told what to buy.  They know how to make the money; but what to spend it on?  Not a clue.
8. Part of my job description is now to know where every store on Greenwich Avenue is located.  It’s irritating when I don’t.
9. There definitely is a difference between old money and new money: old money can afford to be gracious, but they’re harder to please.
10. People are people wherever you go.  That’s what I like about ‘em.

Curt Schilling, pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, has started a blog called “38 Pitches.”  (Schilling wears number 38.)  He answers fans’ questions and gives exhaustive breakdowns of his starts, pitch by pitch, win or loss.  It’s interesting for a baseball fan to hear what the pitcher and catcher were discussing on the mound, or what a pitcher was thinking when he served up that gopher ball.  Only the Boston Globe doesn’t like it.

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I took my car for emissions testing today.  (The final day of the one-month grace period, thank you very much.)  Which reminds me, I really should get around to doing my taxes.

Anyway, in the waiting area the service station provided internet access.  I went to the Drudge Report for the headlines.

One jumped out at me.  It was a blog post by Terry Moran of ABC News entitled “DON’T FEEL TOO SORRY FOR THE DUKIES.”  So, I clicked on that and the computer just stopped working.  Then a notice came up on the screen that porn was not allowed in that establishment.  I think there may also have been some sort of siren.  So I pulled my hat down low over my face, got up and slunk out.

When I got home, I checked it out and apparently the problem was that some commenters on the post had used the word “pornography,” so it was flagged.

Although Moran’s post is not pornographic, that doesn’t mean it has any redeeming social value.

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