Oldie But Goodie

I know it’s probably narcissistic, but every once in a while, I enter my own name in my favorite search engine, which is NOT Google. It’s Dogpile. It’s fun to see how far back some of the links take me, and also interesting to see, in the event that someone commented on the essay, what others thought of my writing.

Today, I sent the Dogpile dog, Arfie, after my name once more, and he came back with this gem for you to enjoy (or not, depending on your political leanings. My sweet little old gray-haired mama used to say, “The wicked flea…” and it took me years to figure out that she was quoting a verse from the book of Proverbs: “The wicked flee when no man pursueth…” So. If you’re a wicked flea, be warned.)

Herewith, my opus:

The liberals I know are all soreheads. They can’t take a joke. They can’t make a joke. They don’t even know a joke when they hear one. And if they heard me tell one, they’d start looking for “offensive” words in it so they could accuse me of being racist, sexist, a homophobe, or a bigot. (Where have I heard that jingle before?)

They take themselves way too seriously. They pride themselves on being forward-thinking, innovative, and revolutionary. What they really are is sad, easily offended, and obsessed with symbolism. They brag that what the world needs now is tolerance and more of it, but they are the most intolerant people I know. They are not just intolerant of my abilities (“Don’t do that. It makes people who can’t do it feel badly about themselves!”). They are ferociously intolerant of my religious faith and the fact that I want to actually display a symbol of that Christian faith (“Gasp! Never, ever tell anybody about your religious convictions! They might be of a different faith, and you might offend them!”). And they are so intolerant of my academic and athletic abilities that they tell me I must never hold a competition to determine who might be best at anything (“Oh, my goodness! Never have contests! We mustn’t have winners and losers, because there are always more losers than winners! Someone might feel bad! NO WINNERS! Do you understand?”)

But most of all, all the liberals I know are intolerant of my income and my ability to earn it. They can’t stand to have me have a little more money than they do. Not only that, but they can’t stand to have me have more money than a skid-row bum. They want me to give it all to them. (Through taxes, of course. They would never tell me outright that I have no right to earn money. They understand enough to know that somebody has to earn it in order for them to tax it). Of course, they posture and simper, and explain hastily about how it is all going to uplift the downtrodden and feed the hungry, and go for wonderful Utopian social projects, but what they mean is I should keep working and earning at my same rate, but I must give it all to them so they can spread it around. Of course, they and I all know that it won’t go any further than their own pockets. Money for assistance to the “needy” has a strange affinity for the pockets of those who would administer the programs.

For years, they promised me that they were going to “de-moralize” me, and they have. They have succeeded in removing virtually every moral restraint on the actions of people in this country, and they have replaced those restraints with license. There is nothing ugly, nothing sexually twisted, nothing scatological, and nothing blasphemous that is not only permitted, but condoned. And not just condoned, but encouraged and subsidized. Don’t you dare be a moral or a religious person in America today, because all the liberals I know are the ones who want to shout you down and cover your religious sensibilities with the excrement of their artistic license.

The liberals I know don’t believe there should be any winners but them, so when I or other conservatives I know win because they are better educated, better prepared, and more mature emotionally, all the liberals can do is accuse me of cheating and stealing the win from them. They have absolutely no concept of fairness, although they squawk about it continually. To them, “fairness” means they win every game every time.

I guess I’m glad I’m not a liberal like the liberals I know. I love jokes, I love surprises, and I really enjoy giving my intellect a workout now and then. I’m not afraid to think outside the box, but all the liberals I know are afraid to do that for fear that someone will be offended or perhaps because there might even be an actual inequality of outcome, something that they abhor. So, I’ll stay with my conservative bent.

Besides, it’s more fun to be over here, and watch all the liberals I know just be themselves.

READ THIS

Pierre LeGrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar

More is coming later.

UPDATE

As promised: More from HonestJoe And not what you might expect. Must read.

Blood-Worshipping Beasts

Ordinarily, I try to refrain from moving whole discussions from Free Republic over here, simply because I don’t want to step on their toes. But THIS ARTICLE and subsequent thread of discussion is just reinforcement of my January 2 blogpost, in which I mentioned the bloody Muslim “festival” of Eid. Now, it appears that the blood-worshipping cult is at it again. I have utilized the Free Republic thread in order to pass on all the photos posted with it.

The mind simply staggers at the Muslim man’s hunger for any kind of blood. They are like vampires, but worse, because they take great enjoyment and pride in smearing their hands in the spilled blood of their enemies, rubbing it all over themselves, and exhibiting it to their compatriots to the resounding cheers and excitement of the crowds.

I have seen other photos of this so-called “festival,” in which fathers have taken their knives to slice and lacerate the heads of their infant sons in arms, in order, apparently, to teach the children how to love the sight of any spilled blood. Any normal mother who saw her child come home with his head, face, and clothing covered in his own blood would be not just alarmed, but outraged. And, to think that the child’s own father is responsible for the gore should only inspire more outrage. After further viewing of the photos included in the thread, it’s obvious that mothers not only condone, but actually participate in the bloodletting. I guess we should be glad it’s not their wives and daughters these “men” are smacking with their knifeblades, but it’s probably only because they tend to do that behind closed doors. Besides, we wouldn’t want to give these bloodthirsty bastards any more ideas…

WARNING: Rampant Uselessness

Have you ever noticed that whenever a new law goes onto the books, it never comes off after it outlives its usefulness or is no longer enforceable? Sometimes I think of a huge crater somewhere, filled to the brim with page after page of out-of-date, useless, unenforceable, silly laws, still on the books and still burning up space somewhere, even if it’s only on some library microfiche.

Among the laws that drive me the battiest are the warning-label laws. You can’t buy a new car that isn’t pasted up everywhere with one red-and-yellow warning label after another. And the sun visors–not just the driver’s side, but BOTH–look like unused storefronts, pasted up with unremovable, obvious, redundant, permanent, and ridiculous warning labels and stickers of warnings that are not just discretionary but MANDATORY. No car manufacturer would let a car off their lot without these ugly pieces of garbage cluttering up the interiors of their latest models. I don’t drive, so I haven’t scrutinized the driver’s side labels. Is there one there that says, “WARNING: This vehicle may cause injury or death when operated in an unsafe manner by an impaired driver!”?

I’ve seen warning labels on the handles of hammers: WARNING: May cause injury or death when used inappropriately!” The only thing missing was the cartoon silhouette of a hammer hitting a head, with a red circle-and-slash cancelling it out. How many of you haven’t seen the plastic bucket with the embossed baby with all four appendages in the air, teetering on the rim of said bucket, adorned with the obligatory circle-slash cancellation? “WARNING! May cause drowing! Keep small children away!” Believe it or not, when this piece of intellectual gigantism was crawling through Congress, the Surgeon General, then a benighted lady named Joycelyn Elders, proposed making buckets with holes in them to prevent such horror. (She is also the wise person who proposed “safer guns and safer bullets.” Cross my heart…)

Now, they want us to get rid of our old analog televisions. And they are considering labeling old analog technology as such. This little bit of governmental meddling is going to become law and enforced come February of 2009, so you’d better rush right out and get a new television before they slap another warning label on it. Apparently, it’s time for us all–and that includes YOU, granny–to get rid of our old Zenith or RCA floor-model televisions in the blonde oak cabinets and replace them with nice, flat-panel digital whizbangs that don’t have a single button, knob, or adjustment. What they do have is a remote with buttons for mice to use…teeny, tiny buttons with microscopic numbers and symbols, all such microminiaturization laid out in a design meant for Munchkins. It’s going to be interesting to see how they go about enforcing this latest intrusion. Of course, the only people who will really comply will be the manufacturers. (Do they still even make analog television sets?)

Now, I’m all for digital technology and geekery. I may be old and cranky, but I LOVE my gadgets, and the more advanced, the more technologically forward-thinking their design is, the better I like them. I buy my computers custom-built. I have the latest DVD players in several rooms of my house. I love the stuff. Sadly, though, all the components are covered with warning stickers.

And what really chaps my little-old-lady hide is buying some squeaky-clean new piece of cutting-edge fun and having to plow through page after page of WARNINGS to get to the meat of the operator’s manual, only to find it, too, has been broken into, with little triangles full of lightning bolts on every paragraph, or circles with slashes through them, cancelling out a spilling glass of water or an electrical plug. (Oh, and don’t forget the warning label that is printed all over the plastic bags the warning lab…, er, the user’s manuals are packaged in.)

The wonders of technology. You may love them, you may snap them up in the gadget stores the instant they hit the shelves, or camp out in the parking lot on Christmas Eve to be the first to add one to your collection, but even you can’t get them without the Nanny-State looking over your shoulder to make sure you don’t use them inappropriately. And, don’t even try to remove those labels. There’s probably a warning label for that, too: “WARNING! Do not attempt to remove this label. Serious injury, prosecution, or death may result!”

Book Report: "Nutrition And Physical Degeneration"

By Weston A. Price, DDS

Nutrition And Physical Degeneration

This book is so valuable for its nutrition information that even after nearly seventy years, it is still in print, and still sells briskly. If there ever was a book that condemned the modern engineered diet, this is that book.

In the Thirties, a dentist named Weston Price realized that many of his patients were coming in with crooked, rotten, or missing teeth, misshapen jaws and odd facial anatomy. After doing a little research, he discovered that all these patients ate diets that were heavily weighted toward what might be called, “The White Diet.” Dr. Price later came to call the diet “Displacement.” It consisted mostly of bleached white flour, processed milk, processed vegetable oils, polished rice, and processed white sugar, and little if any raw or unprocessed food.

In contrast, his patients who lived on family farms or came from more traditional backgrounds lacked all these afflictions, and were sturdy, healthy, handsome, with strong, perfect teeth in wide, well-formed faces. They were able to resist most opportunistic diseases, and were fertile generation after generation.

Dr. Price wondered if such a contrast might prove true in other cultures, so he eventually took his patient little wife with him on a worldwide expedition to find the most traditional and/or “primitive” populations of the places where he visited. He traveled to Alaska, Florida, Hawaii, Fiji, Canada, England, Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and numerous other countries, always looking for the characteristics he had found in the faces and teeth of his patients in the U.S.A. At each stop, he would examine, notate, and take photos of teeth, facial characteristics, and diets. Time after time, it became obvious that the small (and shrinking) populations who continued to eat their traditional foods had broad, racially-characteristic faces, strong bones, well-shaped muscles, and normal reproductive abilities, and the individuals were healthy and resistant to most diseases.

On the other hand, those people who exhibited the sharp features, narrow faces, crooked jaws and teeth, chronic illnesses and wasting diseases were all individuals who ate the Displacement diet exclusively. There were, obviously, gradations of health and constitution among different populations, but as their reliance on the traditional diets gave way to the convenience of the Displacement diet, the subjects’ health began to deteriorate, their offspring often showed problems soon after birth, and before long, he learned that the ill individuals not only were not getting well, they were not fertile, and did not produce children after about the fourth generation.

Today, it’s fashionable to fault Dr. Price’s research on the basis that he was “only” a dentist. But he was a dentist who knew what he should see in people’s mouths, and the reality he found in the mouths of patients who tried to exist on a inferior, refined diet was not what he should have been seeing. Unfortunately, today’s modern SAD (Standard American Diet) has moved so far to the “White” side of the nutritional spectrum that Dr. Price would be stunned and dismayed if he were alive today. We have all become so addicted to convenience in our diet that we have allowed the powers that be to literally poison us for the sake of their bottom line.

We are losing our beauty, so we have to resort to all kinds of surgical sleight-of-hand to make us look presentable, along with gallons of lotions and creams to moisturize skin parched and shriveled from lack of natural dietary fats. Time was when the ideal of beauty we seek today was common in the handsome, healthy faces of young people who ate a diet of nutritional richness and wholesomeness.

We are losing our health, and dropping like flies from diets our doctors insist are good for us, when in reality, it’s the same Displacement diet that crippled one after another of the cultures Dr. Price visited in the early part of the century.

We are losing our fertility. There is almost no such thing as a “natural” birth any more. We have constant pregnancy and birth problems of one kind or another, and must resort to fertility clinics to help us achieve pregnancies that should happen easily and naturally; we have one Caesarean delivery after another; “complications,” and wealthy “high-risk” specialists waiting to help.

The only exceptions are in women who live non-modern lives, or have refused to fall for the dietary lies of the government agencies and medical magicians who insist we eat the inferior diet they foist on us every day. The word “modern” in front of the diet you eat does not guarantee that it is an optimal, nutritious, and healthful diet, any more than “primitive” diets are to be discarded in the space age, simply because of their lack of refinement.

This book should cause you to really, really THINK about the things you put into your mouth, from now on. If you don’t want to buy it, just check it out at the library. Even if you don’t read anything but the captions under the hundreds of comparative photographs, you are going to be wiser when you turn the last page.

Dr. Price was a man far, far ahead of his time. Today, they’d probably yank his license and force him not to practice any more. He was, by today’s standards, a real nutritional maverick. But in truth, he was a man of such integrity that he was unafraid to do his own research, to go to the places that held the answers, and to properly place the blame where it belonged–on the artificial, ersatz and nutritionally-deficient modern White diet.

No wonder there are still people who dismiss his work out-of-hand simply because he was “only” a dentist. Would that we had more dentists from his mold, dentists unafraid to search for the reason those teeth are crooked in that misshapen jaw, not just how much he stood to gain by straightening them.

My, how times have changed…

On Appeasement and "Social Justice"

In order to pursue peace studies, the daily life of nations is categorized, dissected, and theorized into ethnic groupings, politico-economic creeds, religious motivations (although religion counts for less than other factors in peace studies taxonomy), environmental situations, migration pressures, national and international organizational behavior, diplomatic negotiating approaches, etc. Of course, all of these peace study endeavors are based on the concept (arising out of our embrace of the symbolic mathematization of all existence) that human behavior can be “modeled” to the degree that it is scientifically predictable.

From this academic industry has emerged the unshakeable (science = certainty) diplomatic mindset that all international disputes can be solved by talking about them. The rationale for this mindset is that nothing in human affairs outside of science pertains to certainty. If all diplomatic disputes arise out of the uncertain political affairs of men, these disputes ought to be resolvable through method – in this case, diplomacy and compromise.

Read the rest of “Appeasement As War Doctrine” at Intellectual Conservative. It’s very long, but very informative. A good illustration of how history often repeats itself, and why a leopard can not change its spots. While you’re there, browse around and read som of their other fine, articulate offerings by a good assortment of writers.

* * * *

Every time I hear a priest or preacher begin to expound on “social justice,” I simply want to run screaming from the room. The idea of “social justice” was part of the crown jewel of the revisionist version of the “Spirit of Vatican II” that the modernizers hoped was going to yank the Catholic Church out of the Dark Ages and into the Age of Aquarius. But, “justice” is not the word they are looking for. No wonder it doesn’t fit any of their little cubbyholes. The word they WANT is “inequality.” Either they are semi-literate, or they are trying to force one word on us when the other word is the correct one. Sort of like, “gay,” instead of “happy,” or, “Progressive,” instead of “Marxist.”

Also, I take a lot of pleasure in recommending to you Thomas Sowell’s fine essay, The Quest For Cosmic Justice, in which he defines the difference between “social justice” and “inequality.” Let me know what you think.

I Wonder…

…if Bill Clinton sees what Communist China is doing with the technology he sold them for campaign money and loses any sleep…naaaw…

…if Barak Obama understands just who/what he is up against in his ill-considered run for the White House…probably not…

…if Hillary is thinking of a way to kick Obama to the curb on HER ill-considered run for the White House…probably…

…if ANY Democrat has figured up what the real cost of backing out in Iraq will be…obviously not…

…if ANYBODY is paying attention to stuff like THIS…obviously not…

…just wondering, you know.

Robert Stethem, I Will Never Forget You

Robert Dean Stethem is my “soul child.” I will never forget hearing on the news of his heinous murder by Palestinian terrorists on June 15, 1985. Just the sound of that report coming over the television was enough to bring me to tears.

I can remember standing in the wanigan (Alaskan for “room added onto mobile home”) watching that newscast. I felt goosebumps and tears of fury, and an incredible sense of grief and loss, all at the same time. I had a feeling that even though it was an especially brutal murder, it would be quickly forgotten by the press, so I made a promise in my heart: “Robert Stethem, I will never forget you!” Through the years, it has been both easy and hard to keep that promise. Easy, because it could have been one of my own three sons on that plane that day, on their way home after a tour of duty. Hard, because life does tend to get in the way of the promises we make to ourselves, as well as to those far away. After the initial strength of the resolve wore off, I had to remind myself on a regular basis that I’d made a promise, and I meant to keep it, come Hell or high water.

I finally had the opportunity to do something a little more permanent about a memorial for Robert when I joined the brainy (and not so brainy), rollicking bunch at Free Republic, and built a profile page there, which now features its dedication to the memory of Robert and recalls the horror of his murder for those browsing the website who wish to stop by the profile page to learn a little more about me.

Today, as I read through my little “litany” of blogsites, I came to the post by Pierre LeGrande on his “Pink Flamingo Bar” page, and discovered the link above. It also contained a link to more information about Robert that I copied to the profile page on FR. Thanks, Pierre…

Robert Stethem, it looks like we have not forgotten you, after all. Rest in peace.

Please, go to all the links you can find regarding this vicious crime, read them, and remember Robert. His death should never be in vain.

The Halloween Conference (SCARY!)

After reading the article HERE, one is led to do some thinking about just what it is the Progressives are up to (They do love to be called “Progressive.” I guess they think it’s a prettier word than “Leftist.”)

So, here’s my think:

If the LEFT (Oops…”Progressives.” There.) as mentioned in the article, think Hillary! Clinton is too “conservative” for them, (so they didn’t feature her books at their convention), but think that Barak “Osama” Obama is just ducky with them, is that going to mean Hillary! will have to remove her “Centrist” mask and move back to the Left of the Left, in order to run against Osama/Obama and (she thinks) beat him?

Also: When you read the article featured at the link above, notice how many names are of people who are actually already IN our Government. Now, THAT’S scary…

No Hyphens Here, Please

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

—The Gettysburg Address, given by President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863

Every year about this time, I plan to write a post regarding Martin Luther King Day, and every year, something comes up to interfere. This is either a good thing or a bad thing. A good thing, if you think it should be a legitimate holiday, with no mail delivery, some banks closed, schools emptied, and lots of demogoguery, speeches, special presentations on television, and copious mention on all the news channels. A bad thing, if you miss the days of celebrating Washington’s Birthday, Lincoln’s Birthday, and miss the patriotic pageants, concerts, and speeches on July 4, celebrating the founding of our country.

When I was a kid, it was a very good thing to be patriotic, to know all the names of all the past Presidents, and to commemorate in special ways the two Presidents most often credited for the formation and preservation of the Union as it was known in those days. On Lincoln’s Birthday, February 12, we made stovepipe hats out of construction paper, memorized the Gettysburg Address, and had assemblies and pageants that emphasized his Presidency and mourned his assasination.

On Washington’s Birthday, February 22, we went even further. We called him “The Father Of Our Country,” ate cherry pie to commemorate the legend of the cherry tree. (What? you haven’t heard it? The legend goes like this: Young George has a new hatchet. He immediately goes out and chops down his father’s young cherry tree, and when he is questioned about this by his father, replies, “I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet.” EVERY gradeschool kid knew that story.) We had huge sales all over the country–one-day sales with incredible bargains, like new typewriters for $1.00. Why the sale was used to promote Washington’s Birthday, I have no idea, but it was always observed.

Then, the Leftist “Progressives” (they really, really like it when we call them “Progressive.” They think it makes them sound, well, PROGRESSIVE.) decided we were honoring altogether too many dead White guys, and so they lumped them all together as “Presidents” and gave them one day to be honored. We were suddenly faced with decisions we’d never had to make before: Stovepipe hat or paper hatchet? Gettysburg Address or Cherry Tree Legend? And, Presidents’ Day it became. Then, the Progressives decided, in the interest of diversity and racial equality, we should honor a dead Black guy, so they came up with a special day to commemorate Martin Luther King, a Civil-Rights leader shot down by an assassin. He also has been accused of plagiarism and philandering, but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was a singular individual who did much to restore dignity to the Blacks of America. Instead of honoring three great Americans today, we are now reduced to honoring only one by name.

How much mention do you hear of Washington or Lincoln, Taft, Hoover, or Buchanan on “Presidents’ Day?” My shifty, crafty, devious mind reads all kinds of things into this omission: The Progressives are busily and subtly undermining our understanding of National pride and patriotism, and are bent on replacing it with their own brand of celebration.

Is it too late to bring back the special commemoration, with the use of black paper stovepipe hats and brown paper hatchets, cherry pies and one-dollar keyboards? No, of course not. Especially not as long as we never fail to remember and revere the memories of the sacrifices all of these “dead guys” (Black AND White) made for the sake of the Union–which the Progressives are convinced is no better than any other country. In their misguided attempts to make “equal” mean “special,” they have accomplished nothing less than the nearly complete erasure of the memories of the contributions of the Founding Fathers of America, replacing them with their own brand of “special” memories, not to mention the wholesale Balkanization of American cultures. Time was when all Americans, Black, White, or “Other” celebrated the fact that out of the many races and cultures that made up America, we had become ONE people. We were all AMERICANS, and Heaven help any country who tried to undo that unity. Now it has actually been accomplished, right under our very noses, by AMERICANS, and we stand here, blinking, like people just roused from a trance. How many of us actually noticed that things were changing? How many of us set out to do something about it before it was too late? Not enough, apparently, because it is a virual fait accompli and we still do nothing.

Progressive relativism may have its place, but that place is not anywhere near anything that has to do with the sacred foundations of America and our patriotic honoring of those foundations. and whether the Progressives like it or not, we–and THEY–are all AMERICANS.