Tammy Bruce: Maynard Post Archives

Maynard Post Archives

The Mexican National Anthem

A post by Maynard

This being Cinco de Mayo, commemorating Mexico's historic victory over the French, it's a good time to pay our respects to the Mexican National Anthem.

Don't get me wrong; I've got no problem with the Mexican Anthem. But every now and then, we hear some goofball whining that the Star Spangled Banner is militaristic and glorifies war, and I want to tell them to go bother the Mexicans for a change of pace. I salute Mexico's readiness to defend the home country against the "enemy outlander" who would "dare to profane your ground with his step." Some of our own "sanctuary cities" could take a lesson there.

Anyway, for your multicultural edification, here is the National Anthem of Mexico, translated into English for your reading convenience:

Chorus:
Mexicans, at the cry of war,
make ready the steel and the steed,
and may the earth tremble its centers
at the resounding roar of the cannon.
And may the earth tremble its centers
at the resounding roar of the cannon.

First Stanza:
Let gird, oh Fatherland, your brow with olive
by the divine archangel of peace,
for in heaven your eternal destiny
was written by the finger of God.
But if some enemy outlander should dare
to profane your ground with his step,
think, oh beloved country, that heaven
has given you a soldier in every son.

Stanza V:
War, war without quarter to any who dare
to tarnish the country's coat of arms!
War, war! Let the national banners be soaked in waves of blood.
War, war! In the mountain, in the valley,
let the cannons thunder in horrid unison
and may the sonorous echoes resound
with cries of Union! Liberty!

Posted by Maynard · May 5, 2008 06:57 PM · Permalink · Comments (2)
Maynard Post | Multiculturalism

Is This a Joke??

(From Iran, where "Barf" ("برف") means "Snow")

Maynard wonders

An April Fools' item? This G4 press release looks to be legit.

G4 ANNOUNCES UNIQUE NEW SERIES THAT COMBINES EATING COMPETITIONS WITH GUT-WRENCHING PHYSICAL CHALLENGES

New Original Series Entitled “Hurl!” Debuts Summer 2008 on G4

LOS ANGELES, April 29, 2008 — G4 is taking competitive eating competitions to the next level with a new series that combines speed-eating with intense physical challenges. In each episode, five brave contestants attempt to consume the largest quantity of food in a short amount of time and are then immediately subjected to a series of challenges designed to shake them up. The one to hold his or her food down the longest claims victory and walks away with a cash prize, the Iron Stomach Award, and more importantly, serious bragging rights. The half-hour series, "Hurl!" premieres summer 2008 on G4.

The competition is made up of multiple stages, beginning with an intense eating contest. Contestants are challenged to consume a massive portion of some popular All-American favorite, as quickly as they can, with items ranging from chicken pot pies to New England chowder, fish sticks, hot dogs, blueberry pie, and more. Those who devour the largest quantity and keep everything down move on to the second stage where they must face nausea-inducing physical challenges, designed to shake them up – from carnival rides to belly flops off a high dive, to mechanical bull-riding. Each episode features two different cuisines and a new outrageous challenge...

I am at a loss for words.

Posted by Maynard · May 1, 2008 07:03 PM · Permalink · Comments (2)
Cultural Commentary | Food/Drink | Hollywood/Films | Maynard Post | Television

Cigarettes, Terrorists, and Stupid Policies

A post by Maynard

FoxNews is reporting that cigarette smugglers in New York are funneling profits to terrorists. The G-men are looking to crack down, as a matter of national security, not to mention the large loss of revenue.

Does everybody understand that the zeal to punish smokers has merely stolen from the poor and given to the rich (media outlets and professional antismoking profiteers), while making criminal activity hugely profitable? I'm not defending smokers or smoking (and I don't smoke), but smokers have become the modern whipping boy of the new political puritans.

As another bit of social engineering, New York's policy of "forebearance" (they ignore sales of Native American tax-free cigarettes to non-Native Americans) has created a source of untaxed cigarettes which are quickly diverted into taxable channels.

Actually, this is all old news. Five years ago, the Cato Institute published this article which said pretty much the same thing:

Smugglers are now being investigated for possible terrorist ties....Mayor Michael Bloomberg hiked the city's cigarette excise tax from 8 cents to $1.50 per pack. That hike, coupled with a series of recent increases in the state cigarette tax, has pushed the price of legal brand name cigarettes to more than $7.50 per pack. As a result, it is possible to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars on every truckload of cigarettes smuggled into the city...The tax hikes also spurred crime against legal businesses, [causing] distributors and retailers to be confronted almost daily with the risk and dangers of personal violence which are now inherent in their industry.

So, thanks to artificially high prices, hijacking a cigarette truck is almost as profitable as hijacking a bank truck.

These are the laws of unintended consequences. If taxes are low and reasonable, we shrug and pay them. If they're high and arbitrary, the government loses respect and people become motivated to evade. Criminal activity becomes entrenched and widespread.

Why is this simple logic, which is so obvious to the man on the street, such an alien concept to our leaders?

Posted by Maynard · April 29, 2008 02:06 AM · Permalink · Comments (3)
Crime | Just Plain Stupid | Maynard Post | Terrorism

IAEA Slams Israel for Syria Attack

A post by Maynard

On September 6, 2007, Israeli jets swept into Syria on a secret bombing raid. The news reports were slow in coming, and consisted almost entirely of rumors and fragments; nobody was really sure what was hit, or even whether anything happened at all. (Here is an example of the news at the time.)

But it did seem that something in Syria had been bombed. The fact that the Syrians were subdued in their complaints suggested that the target was a secret they couldn't afford to reveal.

In recent days, facts have finally been released. We've learned the objective of the raid was to destroy an illicit nuclear reactor being built with North Korean assistance. Of course, the Syrians are claiming the evidence was faked by the CIA.

Now the International Atomic Energy Agency is condemning Israel and the US for not taking the issue to the U.N.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has written a letter telling us how angry he is:

"The director general deplores the fact that this information was not provided to the agency in a timely manner, in accordance with the agency's responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to enable it to verify its veracity and establish the facts.

"...the director general views the unilateral use of force by Israel as undermining the due process of verification that is at the heart of the nonproliferation regime."

It really would be nice if we could trot these problems over to the U.N. and have them solved. Unfortunately, the reality is more like (Warning: Don't click this link if you're sensitive to vulgar language!) what we saw in "Team America".

Posted by Maynard · April 26, 2008 01:43 AM · Permalink · Comments (1)
Maynard Post | Scourge of the UN | Tyrants

Theories of Taxes

Maynard contemplates tax day (bumped from last year)

The picture above, in case you were wondering, is John Collier's artistic rendition of Lady Godiva. She graces our presence because her notorious ride was in fact a tax protest. Every now and then, at a domestic tax demonstration, there are rumors that a similarly-clad rider will appear. I don't know whether it ever really happens.

We live in a world where just about everything is taxed, sometimes overtly and sometimes with subtlety. Aside from being the source of government revenue, each tax is a little piece of social engineering, causing people to change their behavior to avoid paying. Sometimes this behavior modification is deliberate, such as the high cigarette taxes designed to discourage sales. Other times it's accidental, such as the "yacht tax" of a few years ago, which drove boat builders out of business.

Here are some fundamental tax types:

Consumption taxes, such as sales tax, which tax you for stuff you use
Production taxes, such as income tax, which tax you for your productivity
Property taxes, which tax you for stuff you own
Transfer taxes and fees, which tax you for transactions in which non-consumable goods change hands
Taxes on capital gains and investment income, which tax you on the growth of assets you hold
As the final insult, there's a death tax

Posted by Maynard · April 15, 2008 12:30 AM · Permalink · Comments (13)
Big Government | Economy/Economics | Maynard Post | Money/Capitalism | Politics

Got "Expelled"?

A post by Maynard

I don't know whether I'm going to like "Expelled", which opens in theaters this Friday. But Hollywood and the mainstream media have been doing their darndest to immerse us in a cauldron of political correctness. Being a disagreeable creature, I thirst for anything that promises to be contrary.

John Adams

A post by Maynard

Has anybody been watching the current HBO mini-series about John Adams? It's based on the biography by David McCullough. This series is an agreeable way to be reminded of our fundamental history. The environment conveys a compelling aura of authenticity.

A couple of quick comments... The first engagements of the Revolutionary War were the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Tensions in the American colonies had been rising, and the British decided to disarm the local militias. Troops marched from Boston to seize weapons, but the colonists were warned (by Paul Revere and others). Rather than turn over their arms, they shot back, and the British retreated.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

Do you suppose the Founding Fathers were thinking of this incident when they penned the Second Amendment? These people had firsthand experience with a despot's need to disarm the people.

Also, in the context of our founding, it must be understood that Virginia was the powerhouse of the era. The American economy of the day was agricultural rather than industrial, and the balance of power was strongly tilted towards the plantation states. New England was cold and rocky, and it was not anticipated that the North would ever be in a position to challenge the dominance of the South. So the Southern interests in general and the Virginians in particular were destined to be in the forefront of this part of our history.

Some people express anger because the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution did not abolish slavery. In fact, although many of the Founding Fathers were abolitionists or regarded slavery as a sinful institution, the political reality was that the colonies could not come together if abolition were part of the equation. So the struggle over slavery was postponed.

Posted by Maynard · April 8, 2008 04:36 PM · Permalink · Comments (11)
History | Hollywood/Films | Maynard Post | Second Amendment

Happy Conservatives, Miserable Liberals

This week's "Lexington" in "The Economist" was inspired by a new book entitled "Gross National Happiness".

Mr Brooks [the author] proposes that whatever their respective merits, the conservative world view is more conducive to happiness than the liberal one (in the American sense of both words). American conservatives tend to believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed. This makes them more optimistic than liberals, more likely to feel in control of their lives and therefore happier. American liberals, at their most pessimistic, stress the injustice of the economic system, the crushing impersonal forces that keep the little guy down...the American left is now a coalition of groups that define themselves as the victims of social and economic forces, and its leaders encourage people to feel helpless and aggrieved.

These are important points. Without their misery, the Left loses its (pardon my French) raison d’être. Tammy has told us how, back in the days when she was a Leftist insider, her mentor explained the necessity of rubbing salt into the collective psychic wounds in order to keep the movement alive. Tammy had been of the naïve opinion that they were working to solve problems rather than to lock people down and create a perpetual power structure.

Thus conservatives have greater potential to achieve happiness. But it would be an oversimplification to say that becoming conservative is enough in itself to make one happy.

I'll offer a few more thoughts on happiness for you hardcore philosophers...

Posted by Maynard · April 1, 2008 10:48 PM · Permalink · Comments (3)
Cultural Commentary | Leftists | Maynard Post | Social Commentary

"Fitna"

A post by Maynard

I had earlier noted the imminent release Dutch politician Geert Wilders' short film "Fitna". The release was obstructed by threats of violence and concerns of possible legal repercussions (since freedom of speech can be legally curtailed in Europe; they have no 1st Amendment protection). Many worldwide leaders are condemning the film for its claim that Islamic terrorism is linked to Islamic doctrine.

The original American web server that agreed to carry the film backed out (this being the same operation that had found no problem in hosting the Hezbollah website). LiveLeak then picked up the display, and it was posted on March 27; however it was only available briefly before being removed. In its place, this message appeared:

The Removal of "Fitna" Official LiveLeak statement.

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could affect the safety of some staff members, LiveLeak has been left with no other choice but to remove "Fitna" from our servers.

This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realized LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.

Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one another's culture.

We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.

So "Fitna" ended up on YouTube. Click to view the English-subtitled Part 1 and Part 2. The 15-minute film consists of verses from the Koran interspersed with violent media clips. (Here is an abridged 10-minute version without the Netherlands-specific material).

Posted by Maynard · March 30, 2008 10:45 PM · Permalink · Comments (6)
Hollywood/Films | Maynard Post | War on Radical Islam

Purim

A post by Maynard; bumped from 2007

This has been the week of the annual commemoration of Purim (pronounced POOR-im), which is a Jewish celebration of the events in the Bible's Book of Esther.

A short description of the background of Purim is here. I recently noted the 2006 movie, One Night with the King, which dramatized the tale.

The story is set in Persia (Iran!), and the villain is Haman, an evil advisor to the King who contrives to have all the Jews of the kingdom killed. Ultimately the plot is thwarted, and Haman is hanged. "Haman" is a name that lives on in infamy, much like "Hitler".

I'll mention a couple interesting of specific details. One is that the Book of Esther is unusual in that it doesn't specifically mention God, nor are there any instances of overt divine intervention. Rather, the story plays out in a logical way. We may read into this that the will of God may come about through subtle means. Not everything He does is as dramatic as the parting of the Red Sea.

In Esther 8, the King issues an edict to save the Jews from Haman's plan. But there was a problem to be overcome:

5 "If it pleases the king," [Esther] said, "and if he regards me with favor and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, devised and wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king's provinces.

6 For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?"

7 King Xerxes replied to Queen Esther and to Mordecai the Jew, "Because Haman attacked the Jews, I have given his estate to Esther, and they have hanged him on the gallows.

8 Now write another decree in the king's name in behalf of the Jews as seems best to you, and seal it with the king's signet ring — for no document written in the king's name and sealed with his ring can be revoked."

In other words, for technical and legalistic reasons, the King's earlier order authorizing the murder of the Jews could not be revoked. So the King cleverly issued a proclamation which would effectively block the implementation of the earlier orders without actually revoking them. The King issued this special authorization to the Jews:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Of course I'm kidding on that point. Sort of. But the reality is quite similar. The King authorized the Jews to defend themselves with deadly force against anyone who came against them. The actual Bible quote is this:

11 The king's edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force of any nationality or province that might attack them and their women and children; and to plunder the property of their enemies.

And you know what happened? The people who were going to kill the Jews decided to let them live. In fact:

17 In every province and in every city, wherever the edict of the king went, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many people of other nationalities became Jews because fear of the Jews had seized them.

So aside from everything else, you now have the Biblical derivation of the Second Amendment.

Posted by Maynard · March 20, 2008 04:06 PM · Permalink · Comments (11)
Jew-Hatred | Maynard Post | Religion | Second Amendment

The Night of the Hunter

A post by Maynard

On Wednesday afternoon, after the Tammy Bruce Show, Turner Classic Movies (the cable channel) will screen "The Night of the Hunter". (Check local listings; it's at 1:30 PM Pacific Time and 4:30 PM Eastern.)

This semi-classic film is particularly relevant to events that have been in the news during the past several days. Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish play characters that are both ostensibly religious, but one of them is a false prophet with evil intent. And yet the bad guy moves freely and is assisted by ordinary folk that see nothing but a holy man.

In a world filled with liars and deceptive snares, how do we know who is on the side of the angels? Lillian Gish addresses this question in an early sermon by referencing Matthew 12:33:

Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.

Judge the tree by its fruit. It's a lesson to take to heart.

Posted by Maynard · March 19, 2008 03:16 AM · Permalink · Comments (7)
Hollywood/Films | Maynard Post | Religion

Democrats: Dueling Beverages?

A post by Maynard

The Republicans appear divided between social/religious conservatives and fiscal conservatives. Many of us are wondering what "conservative" even means any more in the context of Republican politics. But, for better or worse, the Republicans have found their candidate, so the argument settles down for the time being.

It once seemed the Democrat Party was solidly coalescing behind the inevitable Hillary. But now the Democrats have their own divisions.

How to define the Democrat factions? This article by The Economist's "Lexington" sees it this way:

A famous political distinction exists between "wine-track" and "beer-track" Democrats. Wine-track Democrats have traditionally supported reform-minded liberals such as Gary Hart and Paul Tsongas. Beer-track Democrats have preferred more practical-minded pols. Walter Mondale famously hammered the nail into Gary Hart's coffin when he stole a line from a hamburger advertisement and asked "Where's the beef?"

Part of Bill Clinton's genius was to bring the wine-drinkers and beer-drinkers together. This was, after all, a man who went to Yale and Oxford but who grew up the child of a widow in the backwoods of Arkansas. Yet this year's Democratic primaries have burst the party asunder once again.

Obamaworld is a universe of liberal professionals and young people — plus blacks from all economic segments. Hillaryland, by contrast, is a place of working-class voters, particularly working-class women, and the old. These are people who occupy not just different economies but also different cultures. How many white Obama voters eat in Cracker Barrel or Bob Evans? And how many Clinton voters have a taste for sushi?

So is Obama being carried forward by a coalition of kids and eggheads and blacks? That makes for a powerful coalition within the Democrat Party, but it will take broader appeal (i.e., a "dream team") to capture a majority of the nation.

(It's worth noting that Tammy has been known to wax poetic on the virtues of exotic martinis. Could this be a political statement? And is it possible to like sushi and still be conservative?)

Posted by Maynard · March 12, 2008 12:59 PM · Permalink · Comments (7)
Food/Drink | Maynard Post | Politics

Israeli Civilian Builds Retaliatory Rocket

Don't try this at home, kids!

A post by Maynard

Ever since Israel withdrew from Gaza and Hamas took over, southern Israel has been bombarded by rockets. The Israeli government is squeezed between citizens demanding the rocket fire be stopped, and other nations objecting to anything Israel might do to stop it.

Here is one man's solution:

Ashkelon resident Moshe Nissimpor decided that the best way to halt rocket fire from Gaza — in light of what he terms the government's failure to do so — is some vigilante justice.

Nissimpor developed a homemade 200-millimeter ballistic missile which he planned to launch from Ashkelon into the Gaza Strip.

"From this day onwards, we will push back to the stone age every place which dares shoot missiles into Israel's sovereign territory," he said Wednesday. "It is time the world understood Israelis' lives are not expendable."

"I'm afraid this is the only language the Palestinians understand, and this is the language in which we'll speak to them. I have many Gazan Palestinian friends who live as Hamas hostages. Once we bring an end to the rocket fire, Gaza's residents will also live in peace," he said.

Mr. Nissimpor took his rocket to town, but it was seized by police as he prepared for launch. I'm guessing that Nissimpor felt he made his point.

Posted by Maynard · March 6, 2008 02:04 AM · Permalink · Comments (1)
Jew-Hatred | Maynard Post | Outer Space | War on Radical Islam

Arthur Koestler

A post by Maynard

Arthur Koestler has lately caught my eye. He is best known for his anti-totalitarian novel, "Darkness at Noon", which you may have read in high school. Koestler's personal odyssey broadly echoes Tammy's: Struggling with emotional issues in his youth, he was drawn into the political Left with its utopian dream of paradise by command.

Koestler was born in central Europe in 1905. In the post-WWI turbulance, it seemed the day of the individual had passed, and the future would be built upon a collectivist foundation. Therefore, a 1930's-era European liberal must choose between socialism and fascism and communism. Koestler embraced the latter and fled from Hitler's Germany to Stalin's Russia. After witnessing the Soviet "experiment" up close, he began to realize the terrible consequences of his generation's well-intentioned mistakes. His dead-on lament from his (sadly out of print) autobiography, "Arrow in the Blue" sounds a vital warning for our time:

We fought our battle of words and did not see that the familiar words had lost their bearing and pointed in the wrong directions. We said "democracy" solemnly as in a prayer, and soon afterwards the greatest nation of Europe voted, by perfectly democratic methods, its assassins into power. We worshipped the will of The Masses, and their will turned out to be death and self-destruction. We regarded capitalism as an outworn system, and were willing to exchange it for a brand-new form of slavery. We preached broad-mindedness and tolerance, and the evil which we tolerated demoralized our civilization. The social progress for which we fought became a progress towards the slave labor camp; our liberalism made us accomplices of tyrants and oppressors; our love for peace invited aggression and led to war.

He continues, rather chillingly:

As I am writing this, more than twenty years later, the storm is still on. The well-meaning "progressives of the Left" persist in following their old, outworn concepts. As if under the spell of a destruction compulsion, they must repeat every single error of the past, draw the same faulty conclusions a second time, re-live the same situations, perform the same suicidal gestures. One can only watch in horror and despair, for this time there will be no pardon.

Hello? Is this thing on?

Posted by Maynard · February 29, 2008 10:53 PM · Permalink · Comments (8)
Books | History | Leftists | Maynard Post

Another Cartoon Jihad?

A post by Maynard

Moving to squelch blasphemy, Pakistan banned YouTube. In enforcing the national censorship, a Pakistani service provider unintentionally shut down YouTube for the whole world.

How could this happen? Internet traffic is dynamically routed to seek the quickest path, in the same way that you listen to traffic reports and route your car. It seems that this service provider, in an effort to establish itself as the national bottleneck, made the electronic claim that it had the inside track on quick delivery of YouTube traffic. This unintentionally sucked in YouTube-bound data packets from everywhere in the world, all of which disappeared into a black hole. To undo the damage, Pakistan has rescinded the ban, at least for the time being.

The Internet is a global organism. This is an interesting example of its vulnerability.

The crackdown was an effort to block video previews of an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders. His movie portrays Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

Posted by Maynard · February 28, 2008 08:53 PM · Permalink · Comments (1)
Balls, Lack Of | Hollywood/Films | Maynard Post | War on Radical Islam

Oscars and Razzies

A post by Maynard

In case you need it, here's the Academy Awards nominations list. (Update: And here are final results.)

As a pseudointellectual elitist, I admit to being a great fan of the Coen Brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson. These are the auteurs respectively responsible for frontrunners "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood". I give both films the highest praise; however "No Country" is easier to "get" than TWBB.

So much for the best of the best. On the flip side, there are The Razzies — that is, the awards for the worst films of the year. The 2008 winners list (summarized in this press release) heavily favors the turkey "I Know Who Killed Me"; honored individuals include Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy. These awards are duly reported in Variety.

Winners of the "Razzie" rarely show up to collect their statuettes. One notable exception was Halle Berry, who was honored for her miserable performance in "Catwoman". In accepting the award, Berry cited the wisdom of her mother, who once told her, "If you aren't able to be a good loser, then you're not able to be a good winner."

The erudite Economist newsmag published this amusing analysis of the practice of saluting the best of the worst in the creative arts. In justifying the inherent negativity of such ceremonies, the report draws a conclusion worth noting:

Staggering, awe-inspiring deficiency perhaps deserves even greater recognition than the handful of prizes doled out today. It is the vital second front in the battle against creative mediocrity.

Posted by Maynard · February 24, 2008 04:21 PM · Permalink · Comments (3)
Hollywood/Films | Humor | Maynard Post

Political Expediency

Why are these candidates smiling?

A post by Maynard

Every political organization has people and factions you don't like. Compromised alliances are sometimes needed to get things done. America joined forces with Stalin's Russia during WWII, even though Stalin was one of the meanest monsters ever to have walked the Earth.

When is distasteful compromise necessary and appropriate? When has a group gone "too far" and compromised "too much"?

I would argue that the wooing of Al Sharpton is a symptom of what's gone horribly wrong in the Democrat Party. Sharpton is more than controversial. He is an evil man whose words have arguably sown seeds of mayhem and murder:

[Sharpton] came to national attention in 1987, accusing a Dutchess County assistant district attorney of being one of a gang of whites who purportedly raped black fifteen-year-old Tawana Brawley and left her smeared with excrement and swastikas. Her claims were found to be a hoax, and after the victim of his defamation won a lawsuit, a court ordered Sharpton and two co-defendants to pay $345,000. [...which he never paid; years later (in 2001), Sharpton's $65,000 portion of the judgment was paid by a group of fans including O.J. Simpson's lawyer, Johnny Cochran.]

In 1991, Sharpton spoke at the funeral of a black child in Brooklyn. The Hasidic Jews involved in the traffic accident that took the child's life, Sharpton preached, were "diamond merchants." Sharpton then led 400 angry demonstrators through the Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights, a marcher at his side carrying a sign reading: "The White Man is the Devil." A Kristallnacht of four nights of rock and bottle throwing at Jewish homes [the "Crown Heights Riots"] followed. A young Talmudic scholar, Yankel Rosenbaum, was surrounded by thugs yelling "Kill the Jew." He was stabbed to death, but before dying, identified the man who stabbed him. This young black, apprehended with the bloody knife in his pocket, was found not guilty by a racially mixed jury during the administration of Giuliani's predecessor, New York's first black mayor, David Dinkins. Dinkins' Police Commissioner, Lee Brown, declared that "Sharpton came close to the line of inciting [to riot] but did not actually cross it."

In 1995 in Harlem, when, during a tenant–landlord dispute, Freddy's Fashion Mart attempted to evict a black-owned record store, Sharpton organized protests against what he called a "conspiracy" by a "white interloper." It was, as one of Sharpton's lieutenants told protestors, a "Jewish department store." After one demonstration, a protestor ran into the store, gunned down several employees, and set it ablaze. Seven, including Hispanics and a black security guard, died.

Posted by Maynard · February 24, 2008 08:46 AM · Permalink · Comments (18)
Just Wrong | Leftists | Maynard Post | Politics | Race Relations

Happy Birthday, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy!

A post by Maynard

Gosh, the 10th birthday of the conspiracy almost slipped by without my realizing it. Where does time go?

Drudge first reported the Lewinsky scandal on January 17, 1998. Bill Clinton waggled his finger in denial, and it was on January 27, 1998 that Hillary announced that a vast right-wing conspiracy was behind the troubling rumors. And thus a new catch phrase passed into the popular vernacular.

From NBC's Today Show, exactly 10 years ago:

Matt Lauer: "You have said, I understand, to some close friends, that this is the last great battle, and that one side or the other is going down here." [Wow, there's an unfortunate double entendre if I've ever heard one! —Maynard]

Hillary Clinton: "Well, I don't know if I've been that dramatic. That would sound like a good line from a movie. But I do believe that this is a battle. I mean, look at the very people who are involved in this — they have popped up in other settings. This is — the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."

The weird footnote to the whole affair is that the only person to make an unequivocal apology for engaging in bad behavior was Monica Lewinsky.

Posted by Maynard · January 28, 2008 10:49 PM · Permalink · Comments (3)
Maynard Post | Politics

Narcissists in History

Trivia by Maynard

The Republicans had launched a long, bloody war. The Democrats advocated a negotiated settlement that would respect the independence of our adversaries. The conflict was going badly, and it looked like the Republicans would lose the next election. There were riots and protests; New York was brought to a standstill. Rebellious opponents of the Administration were jailed, in open defiance of their Constitutional rights. An actor worked to effect regime change in Washington. Morale was low and the economy was shaky. Money was in short supply, so the government printed more.

(This was the Civil War, by the way.)

Coins were hoarded, so Congress authorized various new denominations of fractional currency (that is, paper money worth less than a dollar). The 5-cent note was to display a portrait of William Clark (of the historical Lewis and Clark expedition).

William Clark looked like this:

But the 5-cent bills that went into circulation, as Congress eventually discovered to its surprise and chagrin, looked like this:

Lincoln's Superintendent of the National Currency Bureau (now the B.E.P.) was a man named Spencer M. Clark. It seems that Superintendent Clark, upon seeing an order to honor the historical Clark, thought it meant he was supposed to put his own picture on the money.

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The Mexican National Anthem

Is This a Joke??

Cigarettes, Terrorists, and Stupid Policies

IAEA Slams Israel for Syria Attack

Theories of Taxes

Got "Expelled"?

John Adams

Happy Conservatives, Miserable Liberals

"Fitna"

Purim

The Night of the Hunter

Democrats: Dueling Beverages?

Israeli Civilian Builds Retaliatory Rocket

Arthur Koestler

Another Cartoon Jihad?

Oscars and Razzies

Political Expediency

Happy Birthday, Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy!

Narcissists in History