Apr
30
2007
Victory Through Art Power
Filed Under Education | Leave a Comment
Victory Through Art Power
Filed Under Education | Leave a Comment
Technically, the Cox & Forkum team are on hiatus, but while they are not producing new art, they have been treating us with occasional commentary and insight into the mechanics and history of their craft. Today’s installment, ostensibly a discussion of Walt Disney’s editorial cartoon efforts during World War II, also makes a strong case for total war in the current conflict.
Apr
30
2007
Is it just me?
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Is it just me?
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Either someone at The Washington Post took a little nap in the middle of this article on the Democratic debate on Thursday, and woke up writing a completely different article, or there’s some perverted logic going on here. Since when do the number of votes cast by a Republican in the Senate have anything to do with post-debate spin?
For posterity, here’s the segue:
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) clasped the hand of his statuesque, redheaded wife as he waded through the assembled press. Sen. Joe Biden (Del.), who drew kudos for his debate performance, flooded the room with aides, including his sister/senior campaign adviser, Valerie Biden Owens.McCain wasn’t mentioned up to the point where his name appears, and the debate is not mentioned afterward.The big three candidates — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) — skipped the gathering altogether, calculating that no good could be gained by subjecting themselves to the more than 600 credentialed media people at the debate.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) didn’t show up Thursday for the big Senate vote on the Iraq spending bill. The day before, he missed the final passage of education investment legislation, and the day before that, he skipped roll call votes on four amendments and a judicial confirmation. McCain hasn’t voted in the Senate since April 12.
Since the beginning of the year, McCain has missed at least seven Iraq-related votes, including the confirmation of the individual whom McCain and other Republicans are counting on to turn the war around, Gen. David H. Petraeus.
Apr
30
2007
Our friend Sue “the instigator” was at it again this weekend, snapping this photo with her cell phone while on a trip to her local grocery store. Yes this is a real product, in a large chain grocery store. I can’t vouch for the taste of the sauce or how exactly it’s made (and I’m not sure if this would fit into Rick’s “Americana Photo” category), but the picture sure does have flavor!
Apr
30
2007
Who says we shouldn’t count?
Filed Under War and Terrorism | Leave a Comment
Who says we shouldn’t count?
Filed Under War and Terrorism | Leave a Comment
One of the mistakes the Bush administration made early on was to completely avoid releasing any information about enemy fighters killed in action. Their intent was noble, an effort to head off the mistake in the Vietnam era of providing incorrect and inflated numbers in an effort to “prove” success over the enemy, i.e. the “body bag” scandals. But by providing absolutely no information at all during the War on Terror, the administration has promoted the unintended impression that our troops are the only ones dying, which led inevitably to the infamous “grim milestone” reports from the DLM every time our casualty count trips another zero in the total.
So I’m heartened to see a headline in Pajamas Media (heh, where else?) that shows a nice set of numbers about the Afghanistan campaign without ever mentioning how many American deaths it took to produce them: “40,000 Afghan Babies Live. 136 Taliban Die.”
We are winning, Harry Reid.
Apr
30
2007
It’s hard to suggest that Mark Steyn has outdone himself again when you’ve read his stuff so much, and seemingly said such a thing a hundred times. Yet here we are again.
This week, both the House and the Senate voted for defeat in Iraq. That’s to say, Congress got tired of waiting for deadbeat insurgents to get their act together and inflict devastating military humiliation on U.S. forces. So America’s legislators have voted to mandate the certainty of defeat. They want the withdrawal of American forces to begin this October, which is a faintly surreal concept: Watching CNN International around the world, many viewers unversed in America’s constitutional arrangements will have been puzzled by the spectacle of a nation giving six months’ notice of surrender. But the cannier types in the presidential palaces will have drawn their own conclusions.Yes, it’s true – the Defeatocrats have outfrenched the French. Not content to simply give up immediately, they have been kind enough to provide advanced warning that we’re going to default on our lease on sanity. Unfortunately, I can guarantee we won’t get our security deposit back.
Apr
29
2007
Apparently, it wasn’t George Bush.
Apr
29
2007
Fredmania!
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Fredmania!
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Apr
29
2007
Oh, the delicious irony
Filed Under Entertainment and Sports | Leave a Comment
Oh, the delicious irony
Filed Under Entertainment and Sports | Leave a Comment
Apparently someone over at Rolling Stone never got the memo: they ARE the establishment now. And the lessons they taught are gathering no moss with the new counter-culture.
Apr
29
2007
Duck & Cover
Filed Under Politics, War and Terrorism | Leave a Comment
Duck & Cover
Filed Under Politics, War and Terrorism | Leave a Comment
If it’s not one thing these days, it’s another.
These people getting us all into one heapful of trouble.
Apr
27
2007
Click picture to read the story.
Howard says vote helps the enemy. President to veto bill. Democrats vow to stay with surrender and defeat tactics until their poll numbers change for the worse. American citizens continue to want security and request more Jeff Foxworthy appearances to remind them of what is important. And, sure we are tired of hearing about our men dying in the desert, but we understand that no good will come from leaving the job half finished either. Fight them there, or fight them here, as long as the enemy wants to harm us we have that choice to make. Fighting them there is the right decision.
Apr
27
2007
Media Huff And Puff But Get Facts Wrong
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Media Huff And Puff But Get Facts Wrong
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Drive-By Media Misreporting of “Barack the Magic Negro” Song
Apr
27
2007
Philadelphia fortune tellers closed down
Apr
27
2007
When Did You Turn Off The “Debate”?
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
When Did You Turn Off The “Debate”?
Filed Under Politics | Leave a Comment
Yesterday, I had decided to watch the Democrat ‘debate’ just to see what each of them would have to say. When I told my wife, she said “Oh no! You’re not going to turn that on! I don’t want to hear it!” You see, I have a tendency to yell at the television when people say stupid things. I promised that I would keep my mouth shut. With the family activities of last evening, I wasn’t able to turn on the ‘debate’ until 8 minutes into it. However, I managed to keep my promise with the exception of the occasional outburst of laughter (come on, some of the things they were saying last night were so ludicrous, I had to laugh). My breaking point came around 8:20 or so when Bill Richardson was asked some question and he openly answered an entirely different question. It is one thing for these people to dodge questions. I just about expect that from politicians. This display by Richardson showed how much of a non-debate this actually was. This was more of an infomercial for these 8 candidates than anything else.
Apr
25
2007
Never let it be said
Filed Under History | Leave a Comment
Never let it be said
Filed Under History | Leave a Comment
I was going to marvel at the fact that I’d found a story in the San Francisco Chronicle by staff writer Carolyn Jones that didn’t just avoid making me want to vomit, but was actually heartwarming, non-partisan, and – amazingly enough – faintly pro-American.
Checking a rumor, retired UC Berkeley Professor Joe Fischer was poking around the cluttered basement of the Richmond Museum of History and uncovered a long-forgotten “gold mine.”But, alas, I almost spoke too soon.Hidden in a metal cabinet against a back wall were 4,000 meticulously preserved children’s paintings and collages.
But instead of children’s typical renderings of rainbows, cheerful family scenes, animals or make-believe worlds, there were menacing portraits of Hitler, burning airplanes nose-diving into the ocean, a sad-looking girl with long black braids next to a Star of David, empty houses and dozens of intricately detailed battleships — some with guns blazing, others sinking.
The paintings, done by children in the Kaiser shipyard child care centers, tell the story of World War II with the simplicity and poignancy of a child’s perspective. Their public unveiling was celebrated April 14 with a reception for an exhibition of 50 of the works at Oakland’s Museum of Children’s Art.
These were the children who spent 12 hours a day in day care while their parents were fighting the war. Their moms were models for Rosie the Riveter, toiling long hours in the shipyards, while many of their dads were battling German fascism and Japanese imperialism overseas.
Many of the children came from lower-income families with parents who moved to Richmond to work in the Kaiser shipyards, which in their heyday turned out more Victory and Liberty ships than those in any other U.S. port. The families lived in makeshift trailer camps, tent cities and quickly constructed government housing.
In all, 27,000 of the 90,000 Kaiser shipyard workers were women, so organized child care was imperative.
“This is a remarkably vivid part of the home-front story,” said Lucy Lawliss, resource director at Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond. “These children were seeing the home front and were able to record it from their perspective.”
Martha Lee, park superintendent, called the collection “a national treasure.”
“People think kids in child care suffered,” Fischer said. “But without child care, this artwork would not have existed, simple as that.”Yah, I suppose you couldn’t possibly get away without mentioning how wonderful it is for the state to rear our children for us, despite the fact that – at the time – this was an extreme and unusual measure undertaken during a national emergency.
But you were so close, Carolyn! That was the VERY LAST sentence.
Apr
25
2007
Over the pond in the UK Times (why does it take a British newspaper to bring us this?), word comes that soon US media organizations will unleash a series of exposés (shocking, they never do that!) that will tell “the ‘untold story’ of 9/11″.
Helped by the firefighters’ union, (FDNY battalion chief Jim) Riches and his friends are preparing to “swiftboat” Giuliani, borrowing the tactics of the Vietnam veterans, under the title Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who pierced the Democratic nominee John Kerry’s seemingly armour-plated credentials as a decorated war hero during the 2004 presidential campaign.Now wait just a second…. Back in 2004, we were told by our elite media organizations that the Swift Boaters were telling lies about John Kerry, that what was not fabricated by them was taken out of context, and unfairly smearing the “good name” of a “hero”.
If Jim Riches and his pals are going to “swiftboat” Rudy, does that mean they are also going to tell lies, take things out of context, and smear his “good name”? Or is the concept of “swiftboating” going to suddenly be a noble pursuit in search of truth and justice? Will a “swiftboater” magically become the new media darling, like Time magazine’s gushing coverage of “whistleblowers”, but wholly unlike their treatment of John O’Neill? Will there ever be the barest acknowledgement that perhaps the senior Kedwards wasn’t all he promoted himself to be?
Don’t hold your breath. The media will not explain away their pandering shift, and will just act as if the actions of one are naturally noble while the other obviously scurrilous. Not so much as a whiff of an apology will waft down from the ivory towers of the DLM establishment toward the Swifties they maligned, but the firefighters’ union will be placed on a pedestal not even a Greek god could scale.
For the record, I welcome Jim Riches and the firefighters to the political stage, and I’m interested in hearing what they have to say – for a little while, at least. I hope they remain as respectful in their dissent as possible, and once they have spoken their peace, I hope they leave the Republican Party to decide for ourselves if the issues they bring up should disqualify Rudy from the nomination. If we decide they don’t, and Rudy gets the nod, I hope they will make their voices heard in the appropriate venues as they exercise their rights as citizens throughout the general election.
I have no desire to canonize Giuliani in the first place. To do so over legitimate claims that his failures outweigh his strengths would be especially egregious. I expect, however, that most of the problems Riches will complain about will not hurt Rudy too badly. If I’m wrong, and Giuliani cannot withstand the pressure, I’ll be happy that Riches has given us the opportunity to turn away from a decision that could have become a grave mistake for the entire country.
Besides, we still have The Fred.