SOME SEEK knowledge for the sake of knowledge. That is curiosity. Some seek knowledge to be known by others. That is vanity. Some seek knowledge to serve. That is love. -- BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
SARAH WRITES:
Creating an award for a children’s book about homosexuality is obviously immoral. But there is an additional problem with this award, namely the fact that it is named after the Stonewall riot of the 1960s. The riot occurred when police tried to arrest patrons at a homosexual bar in Greenwich Village known as the Stonewall Inn. Here are some choice Wikipedia quotes describing what transpired:
“The police tried to restrain some of the crowd, and knocked a few people down, which incited bystanders even more. Some of those handcuffed in the wagon escaped when police left them unattended . . . As the crowd tried to overturn the police wagon, two police cars and the wagon—with a few slashed tires—left immediately, with Inspector Pine urging them to return as soon as possible. (more…)
LAWRENCE AUSTER WRITES at VFR: Never, never forget what the Democratic Party is and what it has done. They are not a legitimate American party. They are a criminal, leftist party that is alien to this country. In the name of meeting a national economic emergency, they passed one of the biggest spending bills in history, and then loaded it with gifts for their favorite special interests, thus showing that they weren't spending that unprecedented amount of money and putting the country in unprecedented debt for the sake of the country, but for the sake of their corrupt constituencies. For that breach of faith alone, the Democratic Party deserves to be, not just defeated, but destroyed.
JANE writes:
The Gawker story about Christine O’Donnell and her one-night stand with a 25-year-old seems to be helping her campaign; people see her as a victim of sexism. While a similar story might be political suicide for a man, somehow it’s a boost for a woman candidate. Surprise. Surprise. The following is the opening statement from her campaign Communication Director in response to the Gawker story. (more…)
A FULL LIST of candidates who have pledged to repeal Obamacare can be found here. These candidates have promised to vote for all bills leading to the "defunding, deauthorization and repeal" of Obama's heath care bill.
HERE is a news story that horrifyingly confirms complaints about the decline of the public library. The American Library Association announced today that along with the prestigious Caldecott and Newbery awards it will now honor an annual award for a children’s book about homosexuality. (more…)
LINDA MCMAHON, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, is one of many smart, engaging, and well-spoken female GOP candidates making last-minute pitches today. Here’s a three-hankie ad by McMahon (click the rally ad on her main page) in which she talks of being approached by a “single mom.” (more…)
JAMES LEWIS in the American Thinker, predicting most Jews will vote Democratic tomorrow despite Obama’s hostility to Israel, ponders the question “Why do Jews Vote for their Enemies?” The comments section is worth reading. One commenter writes: (more…)
A COMMENTER at VFR writes this excellent description of Barack Obama: Obama embodies the worst of all the modern liberal political pathologies--intellectual bankruptcy, boundless arrogance, embrasure of the "transgressive" as a virtue, the postmodern critique of the concepts of objective reality and absolute moral values, contempt towards and demonization of political opponents, the elevation of self-gratification into the highest human aspiration, active hostility towards America's British and European roots, and Chicago-style zero-sum-game political sensibilities. He is the least-qualified man ever elected President of the United States--he can't give a speech without using a teleprompter, and even screws that up from time to time--and is in fact our first affirmative-action President, elected on the basis of the color of his skin, rather than the content of his character. His presidency is a textbook example of how racial preferences end up placing unqualified minorities in situations in which they are guaranteed to fail; only this time, the failure has consequences from which we as a nation may never recover. May each and every candidate wo has supported this man be voted out of office on Tuesday.
MORE THAN 50,000 people are expected to gather in the Olympic stadium in Montreal today to celebrate the recent canonization of André Bessette, popularly known as Brother André. Bessette died in 1937 at the age of 91 after a humble and fascinating life. An uneducated man who worked as a doorman for Notre Dame College in nearby Côte de Neiges, he possessed extraordinary gentleness and was believed to have healing powers. He was drawn to the sick and poor and many claimed they had been cured by him. His continuing popularity in modern-day, post-Catholic Montreal is especially remarkable. Brother André was one of ten children of a lumberman and carpenter. Both his parents were dead by the time he was 12 years old. He supposedly refused to take credit for any cures and denied he could heal the sick.
AS I WROTE in this entry, there is a basic misunderstanding about the public library’s democratic mission. The library now strives to be all things to all people. Technological change is also rapidly altering the library’s role. The library of the past is gone, but books are still the main purpose. Traditionally, a library preserves the highest. In the way, a local nature center or arboreteum protects precious wildlife or flora, a library should protect the rare and the beautiful. When the giants of the past no longer hover in the shadows, a library has all the charm of a bus station.
Kristor writes:
Any institution that orders itself in respect to the lowest common denominator will end up like the DMV. The only way a public institution can avoid the eventual heat death of utter disorder is to aim at, and insist upon, excellence: excellence in its employees, and excellence in its clients. This is true also for private institutions like churches, business enterprises and universities. The only way they can succeed over the long run is to aim at excellence. The elite universities are pretty good examples of how this is done, although they have fallen far since they began to value diversity and political correctness more than excellence and truth. Another good example: the Rangers, or for that matter any of the special forces.
Excellence is essentially inegalitarian. If a society has anything good in it, it is to that extent inegalitarian. (more…)
THE MATURE TULIP POPLAR (Liriodendron tulipfera), if given the space to spread and more than 75 years of growth, is a magnificent tree. Its truncate-retuse leaves look like heraldic emblems. They turn lemon yellow in the fall and make a splattering sound as they hit the ground, as if someone is pouring splotches of yellow paint. A few days later, the leaves are brown. They bring to mind these words from Robert Frost's poem "Reluctance:" Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?
GARY NORTH, an economist and social conservative, posted some interesting reflections on the Tea Party at his site. The movement lacks a real leader, he writes, and that is an asset. Its libertarian side will probably fade with time and it will become a growing force in politics. He predicts that it will be led by the best and brightest of homeschooled adults who are accustomed to rejecting the mainstream.
He describes ten key facts about the Tea Party. I reprint the article in its entirety below: (more…)
THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA will offer a sociology course next year on Lady Gaga. The professor teaching the course brags about it in The New York Times, as if the course sets him apart from the pack. In fact, what he is doing is utterly conventional. Popular culture courses are a dime a dozen. The professor also admits to being entranced with Gaga, an out-of-control fan who has traveled around the world to see her concerts and started a fan website devoted to her.
FITZGERALD writes:
I went to our public library with my youngest son recently and was horrified by the book selection. I haven’t darkened a library in years thanks to Amazon.com’s used book service and I’m glad because the bias was more apparent than ever. First, the rulers of the library fiefdom were a group of frumpy, angry crones. Then, scanning through a number of sections in the “non-fiction” area I found a 9-1 preponderance of outright Marxist or feminist texts, books like Sexual Violence and the American Male. The ideas being drummed into the masses in public education, libraries, colleges, etc. are destroying the fabric of society. It’s truly sad. Being a busy professional I’ve opted out of the public education racket, protecting my kids to the best of my ability without locking them up and helping other parents to do the same. My brief jaunt to the library just reinforced how bad things really are. I will not be going back, and the closest my children will be to the library will be the used bookstore down the street. (more…)
IN THIS shocking recorded speech, President Obama addresses teenagers who consider themselves homosexual, visually embracing them with his love and telling them in soothing tones that their differences are “a source of pride.”
“There is a whole world waiting for you filled with possibilities,” Daddy O. says. “There are people who love you just the way you are… Don’t feel like you’re in this by yourself… your differences are a source of pride and a source of strength.”
Our president is a bully who flagrantly violates his mandated role. The U.S. Constitution did not appoint him therapist to the nation’s children. The voters did not elect him to be dad. This is an outrageous assertion of power. He is a bully to parents in their own homes and a bully to children as well, exhibiting shocking insensitivity to the dilemmas and conflicts of adolescence and feeding them blatant lies. This president is a bully and a sentimental idiot all at once. He is an embarrassment to everything good this country represents.
The small town of Castellammare di Stabia near Naples has imposed fines on women who wear tiny miniskirts, extremely revealing tops and low-slung jeans. The mayor of the town, Luigi Bobbio, said not all miniskirts are affected by the ordinance passed last weekend, “just the really slutty ones.”
According to Blast Magazine, Bobbio said, “the skirt is absolutely allowed and permitted. The regulation, how easily you can guess if you do not fall into the easy manipulation, is not aimed at banning this or that piece of clothing, but to give the city and precise coordinates of the citizens of civilized behavior to respect the freedom of each and therefore the freedom of all. ” His point in this mangled translation appears to be that too much exposed skin undermines a sense of order. (more…)