The Howard Dean Growl...is one of the funniest soundbytes of all time. I can listen to it endlessly without growing tired of it. I also think it's kind of funny how much of a backslide his numbers in New Hampshire have suffered since he went guttural on us all. I've heard and read plenty of Deaniac hand-wringing about how it wasn't a big deal and "you had to be there" and "won't the media stop playing it up". They DO kind of have a point. I mean, I don't think this one moment proves that he's crazy or anything. He just got carried away in the moment. However, I'm a person that had to sit through many years of the media latching onto each and every gaffe Dan Quayle or George Bush or ANY non-lib ever made. It's kind of gratifying to see it happen on the other side. Also, Dean just strikes me as overly power-hungry. I'll welcome anything that will just make him go away.
posted by Nick 4:42 PM
Monday, January 19, 2004
Thoughts on Martin Luther King Day...First off, I should mention my overall bias towards federal holidays. I don't think we should have them- and I certainly don't think we should be adding any more. Beyond my general disdain, I also believe that taking a day off from work is a very symbolically poor way of honoring the labors of (supposedly) great individuals. Further, these holidays eventually become nothing more than 3-day weekends in the minds of most people. Don't believe me? This Memorial Day, ask your co-workers which they are more concerned with: honoring the dead or whether or not the boat launch will be too crowded for them to get out on the lake by noon.
Now, I also believe that we specifically shouldn't have an MLK day. He is a poor representation of the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's. Explicitly, here is a short list of problems I have with him:
-- he was a Communist. Some might call him a visionary, but he was certainly on the wrong side of history with that one.
-- The "Dr." appellation was not earned- it was stolen. There is myriad documented evidence that he plagiarized his doctoral dissertation at Boston University. And it was stolen from other black scholars, at that!! In other words, the most prominent civil rights figure of all time in this country stood on the shoulders of those in his own community and proceeded to bask in the praise and respect which the title "Dr." brings.
-- The "Reverend" appellation was dubious at best. This "holy man" proceeded to engage in Bill-Clinton levels of extramarital promiscuity.
At the very least, if we are to honor Mr. King, I feel that we should mention him in his totality- particularly his fraudulent doctorate degree. Ironically, some of the actual ideas propagated by King stand exactly opposite of the agenda of the modern-day "civil rights" crowd. Were he alive today, I'd be very curious to see if King still opposed affirmative-action according to the dictates of his famous mantra: "judge a man by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin".
This holiday is nothing more than a feel-good exercise for our esteemed politicians. What person doesn't want to be seen as caring about blacks and black issues? But if we simply MUST have such a holiday, then I wholeheartedly throw my support behind Frederick Douglass Day. Sadly, the majority of the rabble who are roused by cheap racial politics probably have no idea just who that actually great man was.
posted by Nick 3:33 PM
Friday, January 02, 2004
While we're talking about peaceful Islam...you should read this Interview with Lord of the Rings actor John Rhys Davies. It's hard to believe an actor actually thinks these things to himself- much less says them outloud. He talks about WWIII being the West vs. Peaceful Islam. He also mentions how Europe's increasingly moslem demographics spell ruin for that continent. Good stuff.
posted by Nick 1:59 PM
Radical Islam is Responsible for Thousands of Dead Iranians...Read this PIECE from the Arab news, and see if you come to the same conclusions. Basically, everyone knew that the Bam region is one big fault line. But that didn't stop those hallowed clerics of peaceful Islam from taking money in exchange for issuing fatwahs that overrode the (intelligent) ban on building in the region.
The entire Middle East is poor and backwards for one reason- peaceful Islam.
posted by Nick 1:53 PM
