The question is basic chicken or the egg. Does contemporary leftism make one a wimp or are natural born wimps naturally attracted to contemporary leftism?

Bertram “Jimmy” James

I got to wondering about this when reading about the death a few weeks ago in Great Britain of RAF Squadron Leader Bertram James, who had been shot down by the Luftwaffe in June 1940 and subsequently captured by the Germans. During his five year imprisonment, James (called “Jimmy”) tried to escape thirteen times from a number of different stalags.

Comments(8)

Back in the sixties, during my singing/dancing career in New York, a dancer friend, Bill B., was asked to choreograph the act of a Pat Suzuki wannabe in Vegas. Ms. Suzuki was a young Japanese who rose to modest fame in the Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway production of Flower Drum Song singing I Enjoy Being A Girl. (Incidentally, Flower Drum Song was directed by Gene Kelly and starred perennial Asian actors like Keye Luke — Kung Fu’s blind master Po, and the late Jack Soo of Barney Miller fame.)

San Francisco born Suzuki had a clear, vibrant voice and she sang with great verve. Asian girls then became the flavor of the day and many less talented Suzuki imitators were booked in lounges and clubs throughout the world of lounges and clubs.

Comments(0)

The famous question seventeen-year old Laetitia Thompson offered Bill Clinton on the Washington D.C. set of MTV’s Rock the Vote during the 1992 presidential campaign should never have been answered. She asked, “All the world’s dying to know — boxers or briefs?”

I doubt the world was really dying to know. The question was chosen to titillate and to draw attention to Ms. Thompson. We weren’t aware at the time how obsessed Clinton was with what goes on below his belt so instead of ignoring her with a polite “Thank you, next question,” he gave the moment traction and answered, “usually briefs.”

Thus the trivialization of the process began, demeaning the presidency to a degree Bill himself exceeded with Monica Lewinsky. If Monica ever runs for office might we expect an MTVer to ask, “All the world’s dying to know — circumcised or not circumcised?

Comments(3)

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Comments(3)

In a story yesterday, Sunday, a female NPR hostess acknowledged in the flat, emotionless voice these water-carrying liberal lackeys use to create an image of objectivity, that it was Veterans Day, a day created to celebrate the cessation of hostilities of World War I, which formally ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

The holiday is meant to offer tribute to the service of the veterans of all our wars, honoring them for their sacrifice and in doing so, honoring as well their families and friends who may have lost them in battle.

WW I Soldier

It’s a fairly simple holiday that requires little effort other than saying “Thank you for fighting and dying for our country.”

Comments(3)

Lots of interesting stuff in today’s Wall Street Journal.

CEO’s

The first item of interest is the Danish study indicating that a company’s profitability fell by an average of 20% in the two years after the death of its CEO’s child and by 15% after the death of the CEO’s wife. So it would seem that shareholders would be wise to keep tabs on the personal lives of the CEO’s running the companies in which they own stock. A death in the family, sell.

The good news here is that after the death of the CEO’s mother-in-law, the company’s profitability on average rose. For the heartless investor, then, it would behoove him to find a way to kill a CEO’s mother-in-law after the death of his wife or child.

Comments(0)

Now that President Bush is at the end of his second term and a lame duck, Richard Carmona, his Surgeon General finds the “courage” to testify against the president for “censoring his speeches to match administration political positions.”

He says he was prevented from giving the public accurate, scientific information on such issues as stem-cell research and teen pregnancy prevention.

Carmona told a congressional committee said that the job of the surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party, adding that “Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried,” when he was in the post from 2002 to 2006.

Comments(2)

And so it has begun.

The media is clawing into the horror at Virginia Tech and pulling out its innards. They are creating their stories, framing the isues and hunting down every hook and angle they can think of. You can practically see the saliva dripping in anticipation of an orgy of coverage. How does it feel? What was he like? Did you know the victim (s?) Where were you when it happened? Columbine revisited. Shades of Richard Speck. Boy, oh, boy, there are enough story lines here to keep us all in business for months, and on anniversaries to come.

Comments(4)

In an April 13th Salon.Com article, Bill Maher attacked the “right-wing” crusade against the “elite.” This cheap shot specialist whined that in other fields, elite is good. Tiger Woods is elite, a brain surgeon or a Delta Force unit are elite. It means excellence, darnnit! But in politics, he says, right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh demonize the elite and by doing so are really embracing incompetency, his prime example being the Bush administration.

This isn’t to defend or criticize President Bush, only to educate Mr. Maher, who has conveniently and selectively parsed “elite” to launch a screed against the President. The word “elite” as conservatives are using it is irrelevant to any administration policy or to excellence itself.

Comments(5)

Full disclosure — I hate the guy. But he got shafted.

The man is a bloated, overweening, star-fucking shock jock with little juice left in his fusebox. He parlayed a modest soundbyte knowledge of contemporary issues into interviews with important guests who came on his show to promote their career or latest book.

Imus was made to grovel before his accusers, not the Rutgers basketball team, but to the professional race baiters, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Imus took the media bullet for comments that were nursery-school tame compared to the horrid, despicable, daily flood of garbage the culture has for years sadly accepted from the mouths of rappers, MTV, BET, music videos and reality shows, about which the above morality monitors have said little.

Comments(7)