Just Your Everyday Liberal Violence and Aggression

Rog Coverley, a Republican headquarters manager, will think twice about putting McCain/Palin signs in his yard the next time after his home was shot up for doing just that. Maybe his attackers were trying to send a message about their candidate's stance on gun control.

A Maryland hotel, having the misfortune of being located in a community know as "Obama Country", and drunk with first amendment liberties, posted a McCain/Palin sign under their own. After being savagely called out by community members, threatened with the NAACP hounds, and suddenly finding themselves short on business, they decided to succumb to the protester's fascist behavior.

On a California level: here (in the land of racial, sexual, and religious tolerance), a man in Modesto, Jose Nunez, was broad-sided by an attacker while waiting to distribute YES on Prop 8 yard signs. Before receiving a well-placed black eye, the beacon of equality and understanding yelled, "what do you have against gays?" Supposing the question was rhetorical or, otherwise, the questioner was too impatient to await an answer, he decided to follow it up with a hay-maker. Nunez was mid-answer (albeit it short) explaining that he had nothing against "gays" when he was told what-for and his signs were stolen from him. Liberal "dialogue" can be a funny thing sometimes. Maybe if given the chance to answer, Nunez would have clarified that it wasn't "gays" he had a problem with, it was four rogue judges disregarding the will of sixty-one percent of California voters and redefining the state's popular consensus on traditional marriage. But with a swollen eye and blood coming out of your nose, this is all an after thought.



And finally, on a personal level, my dear girlfriend was driving to her job in West Hollywood on a typical weekday, ill-prepared for the holiday sight that would befall her. We all expect to see Halloween decorations on a crisp fall morning, we do every year: pumpkins, skeletons, and spider-webs. Cute. Zombies, blood, and severed hands. A little more disturbing, but still holding with the spirit of the season. John McCain burning to death in a chimney, and Sarah Palin hanging from a tree. What's that you say? Are you sure? Positive. Halloween can be funny sometimes too, here in Hollywood anyway.

You hear this all the time: but suppose you took these very true, very sad stories and reversed the roles. Reverse the political affiliation of the attackers and victims. Suppose a man in Modesto attacked a homosexual planting NO on Prop 8 signs. Picture a hotel sporting Obama signs being boycotted by a largely white community. And finally, imagine a house decorated with a Biden dummy, burning in a chimney; and Obama hanging from a tree. The implications of these Twilight Zone scenarios are obvious and we would, for sure, have heard about them by now and for years to come. But these actual events you most likely haven't heard of, and much of the country won't. Ever.

Saying there is a vast media blackout when it comes to reporting the wrong-doings of Obama supporters, and supporters of initiatives with a Left-leaning base is like saying the sky is up. If one were to deny such a thing, one would have to be either a very distorted, delusional liar; someone who never reads the news; or someone who is very, very stupid. Media blackouts, Liberal smoke-and-mirror tactics, political diversions: these things are very clear to anyone who considers themselves studious or decent. Yet there is a far more aggravating fact of the matter at hand. It's the devastatingly glaring hypocrisy that always attaches itself to the Liberal star, and somehow never manages to be as devastating as it is. All we can hope for is that the star will burn out, taking the hypocrisy with it when it finally expires in the darkness.

On Facebook, a colleague of mine pondered the woeful "hatred" of the YES on Prop 8 crowd. Hell, even the yard signs that oppose the proposition read, "Stop the Hate, No on 8". To Liberals, an opposition to something they feel strongly about is defined as "hate". I admit, it is much easier to simply call someone that disagrees with me a "poo-poo head", who just "hates me" because they can't see things my way. It's quite another thing to actually talk to the person who "hates" you. More personally difficult, yes, but since becoming an adult, I've learned that the world is full of people who think and feel differently than myself and there are better ways to coexist with them. To be honest, I get a kind of liberating feeling walking around my overwhelmingly Liberal neighborhood on a sunny day, seeing all the NO on Prop 8 signs and Obama/Biden bumper stickers. Though I don't understand them, and almost never agree with them, my first instinct is never to vandalize the sign, or rip off the sticker. I would consider the action a symbolic dissent from the values I cherish as an American. Opposition, debate, election via vote, checks and balances. All the ingredients that were combined 230 years ago to create a democratic union.

I'll leave the fascistic arson and vandalism of the opposition and, thereafter, media coverup to the Liberals. They're much better at demonstrating that the other side is wrong by employing the same tactics they're supposed to be against. Fighting racism with reverse racism, war with violent demonstration, free speech with doublespeak, gun control with guns (to name a few). Most importantly, preferring denial to accountability. I guess I have too much simplistic good will.

An Islamic London: Part II, Present

One needs only to read the outcry over the idea of an Islamic London to realize that the evident harm of such a notion is not just crazed, right-wing radicalism. Authors such as Mark Steyn, Christopher Hitchens, Melanie Phillips, and Bobby Pathak (to name a few) have pointed out the already devouring nature of Islamic fundamentalist ideals on their city. Hitchens himself recently revisited the town of his ubringing, Finsbury Park, in Northern London and saw, first hand, the overwhelming consumption of a culture he was raised with by a culture, once, so far across the channel. Steyn (in his popular book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It) fortells a fate similar to that of Finsbury Park's for the entirety of the Western World. Phillips seconds that emotion for London. And Pathak, in a super-secret journalistic move, shows how an Islamic London would be a very, very bad thing.

Pathak went undercover for a recent documentary entitled Undercover Mosque (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peFQWuk4nuo&mode=related&search=) in an attempt to reveal the radical preachings of London's major mosques. The results were predictably unnerving. Ideas such as the deficiency of women, the evils of homosexuality, and subhuman nature of Jews and Indians seem to be commonplace teachings around London. However, people like Michael Hodges of Timeout London insist on passing these ideas off as twisted delusions of the "hysterical" right. The inspiration for visions such as the one accurately rendered by Hodges at the beginning of his article to illustrate a fanatical Western nightmare of an Islamic London (or West for that matter) are hardly concoctions of paranoid, conservative racists. The inspiration for such visions are planted there by the men of Islam who preach diligently about getting the ball rolling on said visions. We're not afraid of our own weird misunderstanding of an Islamic state; we're afraid of what the authors of an idyllic Islamic state tell us and their followers this will entail.

Mr. Hodges goes on, in detail, to theorize what exactly we could expect in an Islamic London. Point by point, he lays out all of the tenents of a properly functioning society and how, under Islam, these aspects of Western civilization would function far more advantageously. However, Hodges fails to realize how terribly wrong he is based on two counts that become pathetically clear when reading his proposal. First, that none of these ideals would actually occur for anyone wanting to adhere to democratic principals in the first place, that one would have to convert (or "revert" as it's known in the Muslim world) to Islam in order to survive comfortably in London. And second, that none of these would subsequently be good things in place of the currently standing free society of London. Hodges begins his outline of Islamified London with the following:

"But rather than fear the inevitable changes this will bring to London, or buy in to a racist representation of all Muslims as terrorists, we should recognise both what Islam has given this city already, and the advantages it would bring across a wide range of areas in the future."

True, not all Muslims are terrorists. But as Ann Coulter points out, "then why are all terrorists Muslims?" And I'm talking about the terrorists that matter. The ones that attempt to force their oppresive religious views on London with violence, destruction, and intimidation. The ones that wouldn't mind turning London into Londonistan. As Hitchens points out in his article 'Londonistan Calling', a Muslim activist named Anjem Choudary was asked if he might prefer to move to a country which practices Shari'a. His frightening response: "Who says you own Britain anyway?" Hitchens concludes, "A question that will have to be answered one way or another." The following is an attempt at answering each of Hodges step-by-step proposals for his dream of an Islamic state, and how such a dreams is, in actuality, a nightmare even for sympathetic apologists such as Hodges himself (though he may not realize it). He begins with:

Public Health: Hodges gives us a grim statistic that disturbs even him. That, based on a 2001 census, 24 per cent of Muslim women and 21 per cent of Muslim men suffered long-term illness and disability. Of course he points out that these are epidemics of society rather than religion. But isn't Hodges arguing that Islam would be better for Londoners as a whole? If the population that practices Islam is suffering more serious illness and disability than the population that doesn't recognize a central religion, shouldn't we avoid adopting the clearly less fortunate religion as our own? I'm not suggesting that everyone who worships Allah is automatically vulnerable to disease, but the statistics are difficult to escape. It goes along with what Hodges brought up earlier about the "racist" notion that all Muslims are terrorists. All I'm asking, in regards to public health, is why is an overwhelming demographic of disease prone Londoners Muslim? Hodges ponders this for a mere moment, shrugs off the stastic, and offers a very strange reason as to how being Muslim would benefit London. He, very matter-of-factly, reminds us that the physical act of Muslim prayer techniques couldn't hurt out of shape non-Muslims. So why not convert? (The five-a-day ab rolls are just what your beer gut needs). He makes the questionable assumption that the Muslim act of prayer is designed to keep worshippers fit. And whether or not this is what Muhammad had in mind, Hodges is still saying we should all convert to Islam because we're just not doing enough daily situps. Ignoring the fact that converting to a entirely foreign religion is a lot to ask of a person anyway, no matter how fat they are. He also brings up the Muslim act of hand and feet washing, and points out that obviously this sacred ritual "promotes public hygiene." Well, I take a shower every day and am rather diligent about washing my hands as well and I get it all done without having to praise Allah first.

His second point is that alcohol is haram (forbidden) to Muslims. And what with all the horrible things that go down as a result of alcohol, why not do what the Americans did that one time and just prohibit it...in the name of Allah. Hodges throws those statistics we've all heard a million times at us, in order to prove that we'd all be better off without the stuff (22,000 deaths a year, etc.). But his sentiment is inevitably that of a panderer, someone who isn't happy with the fact that the religion (he, himself, doesn't practice) forbids alcohol, but since he's on the subject of selling Islam to London, he might as well dig up some unavoidably nasty statistics in order to sell it. Interestingly enough, Hodges wrote an article for Time Out London a month prior to the article in question title 'The East End Art Scene', wherein he applauds art gallery expos for their abundance of free booze. Something tells me that in an Islamic London, Hodges won't be doing much else at East London art shows aside from looking at the art. And I've been to modern art expositions without the luxury of being adequetly intoxicated, and I can tell you that it's a dreadful fate.

Ecology: 'The world is green and beautiful.' So says the prophet Muhammad. Okay, who doesn't think so? I'm not sure I'm aware of a religion that thinks the world is 'off-color and ugly', or whatever the adverse may be. 'And Allah has appointed you his guardian over it.' Oh, there's the rest of it. And what if I don't believe in Allah? In Muhammad's farewell address (632AD), he states, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say `There is no God but Allah'". So, the world is green and beautiful, sure, only if you also happen to be Muslim (or maybe this just makes it more green and beautiful). What's curious is the fact that Hodges even brings up the issue of ecology to prove his point. As if Muslims have more license over the environment than any other group in London, therefore London should be Islamic. Muslim leaders and prophets are teaching their followers to respect and care for the environment, fine. So are a lot of other religious groups, political groups, nature groups, animal rights groups, etc. Weak point Hodges, what else have you got?

Education: Here, Hodges loses sight of even his own political doctrines. He both champions Muslim-based schools, and suggests that these religious schools should be state funded (tsk tsk, liberal). We begin with a grim portrait of the education situation relating to Muslims, by way of a few facts:

-Muslim students perform less well than non-Muslim students.
-37 per cent of 16 to 24-year-old Muslims have no qualifications.
-16 to 24-year-old Muslims are half as likely to have degree level or above qualification than other inner London young people.

Aside from none of this boading very well for an argument encouraging extending these statistics to the whole of London's education system, they simply don't come as very shocking to the discerning reader. Most Muslim sectors of any large Western city are impoverished and, as a rule of thumb, impoverished areas of any major city anywhere on Earth tend to have underprivelaged, poorly financed schools. Again, does this mean we do something about the education of London's Muslim school children? Or do we broaden this poor education to include all of London? The answer seems obvious; Hodges sees it, and his solution is where I question his left wing credibility. "While controversy rages over faith schools, there are 37 Muslim schools in London. As of 2004, only five were state schools." So we just want to be clear, that you (Mr. Hodges) support state funding for ALL faith schools. Be they Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Protestant, or Catholic. However, if we adhere to your thesis, that London should be Islamic, how well do you think the Muslim state would take it if they were required to fund Christianity? Be honest. This could be my insane, right wing nightmare taking hold but based on the relationship Muslims have with any other religion around the globe (we'll touch on inter-faith relations in a bit), I'm willing to bet the answer to that question is 'they wouldn't take it very well.' All Hodges' solution would produce would be underprivelaged, poorly funded Jewish, Hindu, and Christian schools. So the only group this solution benefits is (do I even have to say it) Muslims. On an anti-Semetic note, you'll recall this last Spring schools in London began dropping touchy subjects such as the Holocaust and the Crusades so as to avoid offending Muslim students who might be taught, at home, that the former never happened and the latter was a holocaust of 16th Century Muslims. "But Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, claims Muslim children do better in their own faith schools than in the mainstream state sector," Hodges complains. I'll bet they do. The history classes must be a breeze.

Food: This one relates to Hodges' argument about alcohol being haram. The argument being: if we're doing something that is harmful to our bodies (like drinking Heineken and eating donuts), why not just solve this by converting to Islam? The whole argument is so beyond stupid that I'll spare you Hodges' slip-shod notion of Islamic religious practices and move on to the next, much more interesting, point.

Inter-faith relations: I almost don't even have to say anything. What with the Jihadist killings of Jews and Christians in the Middle East, Hindus in India and Pakistan, and Buddhists in Southeast Asia: this category should essentially speak for itself. I'm not, of course, suggesting that all Muslims, everywhere, are violently murdering members of other faiths. But it is Hodges' complete lack of understanding on this subject that leads me to bring up the evidently enormous rift of violence between Islam and all other religions. Hodges states, "Hindus and Sikhs manage to live alongside a large Muslim population in India, so why not here?" Because Hindus and Sikhs manage to live alongside a large Muslim population in India, but not very comfortably. And they're somehow managing it a lot more naturally than the Muslims are alongside the Hindus and Sikhs. The math is simple: if the Hindus and Sikhs are coexisting with each other just fine, but the Hindus and Muslims aren't with each other, the Sikhs and Muslims aren't with each other, and the Hindus and Sikhs aren't with the Muslims, then there exists an obvious negative variable. In other words, "why not here" is less a realistic question than, "why not there?" When the British left India in 1947, the continent was violently split into present day Muslim Pakistan, and Hindu-majority India that cost the lives of around one million. Since then, three wars have taken place between the two countries leading to a current feeling of uneasiness not consistent with the idea of the peaceful inter-relationship Hodges describes. To use the India/Pakistan model as an example of how inter-faith relations in future Islamic London would be is not only blatantly ignorant, it's simply a bad example.

Arts: "Some of the finest art in London is already Islamic," Hodges proclaims. But most of the finest art is not. And the art that Hodges mentions (ceramics, textiles, carpets, metalwork, glass and woodwork) is artistic craftsmanship, not 'art' in the Western sense of the word. A Renoir painting and a beautifully crafted tile are two very different things. "Islamic influences have also flourished in other areas of the arts," Hodges states, "with novelists, comedians, and music." Well, good for them; but what's the point? No one ever implied that Muslims couldn't evolve with the times and both practice their religion and create art as well; and no one ever implied that they shouldn't either. Although, the artists he uses as examples are questionable if he's trying to convince us that their Islamic-inspired motives are more advantageous to London's art community than the current Western ones, and that those motives are pure. Hodges mentions Shazia Mirza, to make us aware that Muslim comics do exist. Shazia Mirza, however, is a little known London-based female comic, whose act is based around her faith. Who knows why she isn't as popular as her peers, but maybe it has to do with certain Islamic inspired jokes that are liable to make any comic controversial (particularly Muslim ones). Around the 9/11 attacks, Mirza incorporated a bit into her act where she came out in traditional hijab dress and began her set with the remark, "My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that's what it says on my pilot's licence." What better way to isolate your religion from the rest of the world at a very crucial historical moment. Despite giving Islam a bad name, outright, one thing is evidently clear about her comedy: aesthetically, it just isn't funny. So if Shazia Mirza is what we have to go on as a representation of Islamic comedy on our future stages, then I suppose what we get is ambiguosly terrorist humor. The kind that incites nervous white people, not wanting to appear racist, to chuckle out the sides of their mouths and yank on their collars. Maybe I'm getting too political. If so, here's another Mirza joke: "I can't understand women who wear necklaces with 'Mum' written on them. I don't wear a necklace saying 'frigid'." I don't get it. By way of music, we have rappers Mecca2Medina (who?) and Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens).

“From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, ‘Return to us tomorrow.’ Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection.” -The words of the Prophet Muhammad

Wait, so music isn't even allowed in Islam? Technically: yes. That's precisely why Yusuf turned in the guitar for a prayer mat. And as far as novelists go, I suppose it will be okay to write books in Islamic London, just as long as you're an Islamic writer. Yusuf Islam himself agreed with the violent fatwa placed on writer Salman Rushdie's head after writing The Satanic Verses. And we can forget about knighting the achievments of free-thinking writers expressing their art in Islamic London, because even in modern British London Rushdie's life was threatened when it was announced recently that he would be knighted for his literary career. It is unknown if Cat signed on to these proposed mob hits as well. On a humorous note, Hodges refers to Yusuf Islam as "less in-your-face", in his relation to Mecca2Medina. If calling for beheadings isn't "in-your-face", I shudder to think what is. Maybe he meant Yusuf is "less in-the-general-area-where-your-face-used-to-be."

Social Justice: The first term Hodges thinks up himself to sugar coat another term. What he means by "social justice" is just welfare, but with a catchy new liberal ring to it. As if the government forcing hard working individuals to give part of their earnings to the unemployed is "justice". That's like calling a food stamp a hard-earned dollar. In Islam, this is called zakat. It is a welfare tax of 2.5 per cent of annual income. With the current situation in London being that the most impoverished bracket of individuals, as a whole, are in the Muslim communities, who does Hodges propose we tax in order to help them? How about this, Hodges: tax the privelaged, well-to-do Londoners and give to the poor, needy Muslims so they can rise up in income and status to become the predominant religious and political force in London. I think Hodges would like that idea very much. Zakat! But only for non-Muslims.

Race Relations: For this, I'll let Hodges' creepy final statement prove my own point on this entire matter,

"Under Islam all ethnicities are equal. Once you have submitted to Allah you are a Muslim – it doesn’t matter what colour you are. End of story."

Submission to Allah. Amen, brother. I mean, Allahu Akbar...brother.

An Islamic London: Part 1, History

Here, Time Out London argues that "an Islamic London would be a better place." And it, or I should say he as in columnist Michael Hodges, begins by imagining a London of the year 2021. We are witness to a public execution in fictional Mohammad Sidique Khan Square of some poor fellow for some undisclosed crime. A noose is fixed around his neck, as the eager crowd shouts, "Allahu akbar", and just as the executioner is about to press the button...Hodges relieves us of the drama and eases our terror, proclaiming the scene to be merely a "hysterical, right-wing nightmare of a future Muslim London."

But until I (or Hodges) mentioned that, you were probably on board with the realism of this 2021 nightmare, weren't you? I know I was. A public execution in the name of Allah sometime in the future still doesn't seem all that far from the truth in a city ruled by Islamic fundamentals. Hodges goes on to favor strict Islamic law over liberal, democratic freedom, and systematically debases almost all of the liberties enjoyed by the West as if they're annoyances that hinder our humanities. He begins his argument for a guaranteed Utopic society under Islam with the notion that the only reason we (as Londoners, Westerners alike) are so adverse to this apparent life in Eden's Gardens is that Islam is just too "alien" to us. Foolishly we are unaware of Islam's equation of women to men on the same first class level, their tolerance of same sex relationships, and their humanly just punishment of wrong-doers. So the burqa must be some whacky fashion statement by Islamic women that their men just don't understand. And countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen are still old-fashioned when they punish homosexuality with death; but who knows, maybe by 2021, they'll come around.

Then Hodges makes an embarrasingly failed attempt at justifying Islam's supposed familiar nature with London by citing historical events post World War I. His completely shoddy history not only refutes all arguments for a successful London under Islam, it insults any of his countrymen that don't happen to have their head completely lodged up their own ass. He cites that Islam couldn't possibly be alien to Londoners when "at the end of World War I the city sat at the heart of an Empire that had 160 million Muslim subjects, 80 million in India alone. London was the largest Islamic capital in the world." But not by choice. This isn't even a historical issue to start out with, it's demographics. Saying London was the heart of an overwhelming majority of Muslims is simply stating a fact, ignoring the figures and ramifications. Like saying Los Angeles is at the heart of Mexico. Again, not by choice. But let history speak for itself, because even it can say something for 2021.

During World War I, the Ottoman Empire made the poor military decision of aligning itself with the Central Powers in that war (the Central Powers were to WWI what the Axis Powers were to WWII), thus clinching their position with the ultimate losing side and eventually ending their 625 year existence. To say London should be familiar with Islam at this time (as Hodges pleads) is like saying France should, at least, be familiar with Nazi Germany during and after WWII. Basically, during WWI the Ottoman Empire, by way of the Islamic Turks, made things very difficult for the allied forces of Britain, France, Australia, and Russia (to name a few). Headed by strategically minded German generals, and passionate (but inept) Turkish ones, the Ottoman-German Alliance swept Europe and Asia in an attempt to cut off ties between Britain and India, and wage an affront to Russia. Some battles, such as the Siege of Kut, were nominally successful; but as history tells, none were an absolute victory for the Central Powers. As a result, the Ottoman Empire was completely blown apart, and scattered across Europe and Asia, never to recover. It wouldn't be fully dissolved until 1922, but the period before then is when Mr. Hodges names London as the "heart of the empire". Sure, said empire listed 160 million Muslim subjects to it's name, but what's an "empire" when it's on its death bed? 80 million of those subjects resided in India alone, an allied stronghold during the war. I agree with Hodges' statement that places like London and India were epicenters for an Islamic Empire. But what he doesn't point out is that, given the subject's involvement in the war, things post were likely to be pretty awkward.

Welcome, Baby Scheer

If The Nation is, as they themselves put it, "The Left's Flagship", Robert Scheer sounded off recently like a drunken sailor from it's crow's nest. His latest article, 'Welcome, Baby Cheney', is irresponsible, borderline moronic, and very much delighted with itself despite being both of these first things. If this is what the left has in mind as journalism, at publications such as The Nation, to push their "progressive" causes, then it looks as though the flagship has sprung a leak and won't be back to shore. Or maybe it's just Scheer who has sprung a leak. From the sound of it, he most definitely has.

The article in question is sort of a 'hip hip hurray, in your face Republicans' piece in regards to the recent birth of Mary Cheney's first child. That's right, Mary Cheney, lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney. Samuel David Cheney was born on May 23rd of this year even, apparently, to the delight of his new grandfather. A spokesman for the family has said, "The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild." And more importantly, Mary Cheney is quoted as saying "This is a baby," and "This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child." My apologies to Ms. Cheney for the blog; however, I'd rather see it as a response to Robert Scheer, who neither had respect for your wishes nor any intention of keeping your pregnancy out of the political arena for anything other than left wing posturing and back-slapping from his colleagues at The Nation (and probably Salon).

Scheer begins the article by thanking "The Almighty, whatever that might mean, for planting the seed of life in the lesbian body of Mary Cheney..." Vulgar? Yes. Respectful of Cheney's request that her baby not be used as a political prop by either side? In no way. You can almost hear Scheer rubbing his hands together with delight in having brought the irony of this particular story forward. He goes on to say, "The message, carried prominently in news reports throughout the world, is that America has come of age in recognizing, as do most truly modern countries, that homosexuality is indeed normal." Now the whole country must wake up and acknowledge that homosexuality is "normal" because Dick Cheney smiles when he holds his daughter's baby? According to Scheer: absolutely. The sight of VP Cheney embracing the newborn apparently "Was a milestone in the nation's struggle for human rights for all. Never again will it be possible for conservative Republicans to shun homosexuals in any facet of American life without appearing outrageously hypocritical." Won't be possible? Or won't be allowed by Scheer and his fellows at The Nation? What was Cheney supposed to do, throw the baby down on the steps of the Capitol and shout to the Heavens that he will never accept the homosexual lifestyle? Grandiose as that would have been, none more grandiose than Scheer's pompous declaration based off of what actually did happen (in reality, he most likely expected something more like a Mayan sacrifice of the child at the hands of ruler Cheney).

If anything, Mr. Cheney's reception of his own daughter's child is a laugh in the face of all the liberals that just assumed people like the President and Vice President were nothing more than a pack of rabid dogs, milling around waiting to tear apart the nearest homosexual and their offspring. Here's an interesting quote from George Bush when asked about his VP's new grandson, "I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her." What? Not, "Me no like lesbians. Me like war. Arrgggh." I know what Scheer's response would be to my rhetoric, he'd say "of course they aren't going to say what they REALLY believe in public." Why not? They haven't yet made a statement for the opposite. Kids do a lot of things their parents don't approve of, but at the end of the day they're still their kids. And like I said, their positive reception only proves that, at the very least, they're caring human beings who can smile in the presence of a baby.

What it comes down to is, any one of us can love and admire the introduction of a child into the world (yes, even us Conservatives), but at the end of the day it doesn't mean we forget our beliefs. Just because Dick Cheney coddled his newborn grandson doesn't mean I'm going to change my stance on gay marriage and homosexual parents. And I don't believe it will change his stance either; he just happens to be a decent, caring human being who doesn't accept homosexuality as "normal" (much to the dismay of Scheer). Scheer asks,

"Does not the life of Mary Cheney, born to God-fearing parents in a home of presumably high moral tone, and herself an activist in the Republican Party that has exploited homophobia for temporal political advantage, definitively answer the argument that homosexuality is not a fickle choice but a facet of the natural order of things?"

He slipped the bit about the Republican Party "exploiting homophobia for temporal political advantage" in there quite nicely, didn't he? But I think that tag on the Republican Party requires more analysis. First of all, isn't the entirety of the article, 'Welcome, Baby Cheney', an exploitation of, what Ms. Cheney would request not to be, the birth of a child? Isnt' Scheer's article a champion of the homosexual agenda for "temporal political advantage?" And if the left can continue to use the outdated, nonsense term "homophobia" in just about everything they do, then I can point out that if a Republican such as Dick Cheney is "homophobic", then I'd like to think his condition is cured. Holding a child born to homosexual women, while standing next to them, is no small task for someone afflicted with such a disease. My assertion of that last part of Scheer's quote is where I might lose some of the mystics, but coming at this thing from a strictly scientific standpoint, a statment, such, that would refer to homosexuality as "a facet of the natural order of things" would have someone like Charles Darwin spinning in his grave. Ms. Cheney did, in fact, deliver little Samuel, but the seed was most definitely not that of her partner's. I wouldn't go so far as to call homosexuality a "fickle" choice (I understand it takes a great deal of dedication), but I'd be blind to equate it to the evident goings on of the natural world. In my experience, the "natural order of things" has no time or business for things that can't get together and reproduce.

But I'm getting off on a political diatribe here, and I'd like to avoid, as much as possible, going where Scheer went with little Samuel Cheney. If you happen upon the article (don't bother), he uses the remainder of it to bring up what liberals of his ilk tend to bring up under any circumstance and equates the entire thing to the War in Iraq. How he does it, and why, is the opposite of masterful but he eventually comes back around to a lofty conclusion and in it says,

"Yes, baby Samuel, even in the care of far less famous gay couples, would be more likely exposed to the best family values, not to mention a higher level of art, music and croissants, than he would had he been born to a heterosexual family."

As a heterosexual man who hopes to one day have children and expose them to the "best family values": I'd like to go on record as saying that I enjoy art, music and croissants very much, and have no intention of depriving them from my children. If the term "heterophobic" existed, I'd utilize it now for Mr. Scheer. But he miscalculated Cheney and Bush's response to a homosexual family, so why should we take what he has to say about family values seriously anyway?

I Miss America

As you may or may not know, the Miss Universe Competition has already come and gone. For anyone who didn't care to notice the spectacle flutter by (or if you're like me, didn't even know there was a Miss Universe Competition), I'll share with you now some of the highlights:


*Miss Japan won the coveted Miss Universe crown.


*Miss Sweden was removed from the competition by her own country for its supposedly collective view that the competition is degrading to women (I hope this doesn't mean an end to their massage therapists as well).


*Miss Mexico was forced to change her gown to a fruit & vegetable design after public outcry from the Mexican people that her former outfit consisting of a design depicting the Cristero war (a Roman Catholic rebellion in the 1920s), and a bullet studded holster were more disagreeable than, say, produce.


*Oh and, speaking of Mexico, Miss USA was booed mercilessly by the primarily Mexican crowd in Mexico City's National Auditorium. She also tripped and fell during the evening gown segment of the show; however, this wasn't when the crowd decided to chant "Mexico! Mexico!" over and over. It was during her question and answer session. Needless to say, the answers were never heard (for good or ill).


Apparently the crowd was "protesting" the United State's treatment of Mexican immigrants (and taking it out on poor Rachel Smith). Confused? Or does the civil unrest at the competition inspire you to take up arms against our country's ill treatment of our neighbors to the south as well? If you live anywhere near said neighbors as I, at times uneasily, do you'd scratch your head at such a display. Unless of course the protest was fired up by a group of strict, patriotic Mexican nationals whose anger was directed at the United States for its positive (or hands-off, rather) approach to their traitorous breathern, fleeing Mexico for greener pastures. How dare they. This, however, is not at all the case.


Is it the fact that there is now somewhere between 10 and 15 million illegal Mexican immigrants (who's counting? No really, who is?) living within our borders at this very moment? Or is it the new amnesty bill being championed by seemingly every politician, from the President on down, that would virtually make all of these "illegal" immigrants "legal" (no more illegal immigration problem, just take out the "ill" before the word "legal")? What could it possibly be? Why wasn't Miss Japan booed? Japan's border enforcement is akin to a maximum security prison during lockdown. It's nearly impossible to be illegal in that country, and their workforce is almost entirely Japanese. Virtually all of the countries included in the massive Miss Universe list are similarily tight when it comes to immigration. But why would a Mexican want to get work in Egypt anyway? So I guess, by default of proximity and opportunity (and despite these luxuries), the United States became Mexico City's whipping boy...of the entire Universe.


Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Does that mean we can count all of the hecklers at the competition out as potential candidates for a green card? I hope so, 'cause it's getting mighty crowded up here.

ISMAIL AX: The Virgina Tech Jihad?

What does ISMAIL AX mean? Cho Seung-Hui scrawled the words onto his arm before he began his bloody rampage through the campus of Virginia Tech the Monday morning of April 16th, 2007. Why did he do it? And again, what does it mean? He could have written anything there, if it was meant to be significant. According to his writings, he had social problems with "rich kids" and "debauchery". In that case, he could have written DEATH TO RICH KIDS, or END DEBAUCHERY NOW. But he wasn't that clear. He must have known that, after offing himself, we'd all be reading his twisted diaries and screenplays to find answers. When someone like Seung-Hui does what he did on Monday, the rest of us try desperately to understand. However, nothing at all shocking is written in those diaries and screenplays. Nothing about Seung-Hui's past is abnormal or characteristically inaccurate in relation to the atrocities he was responsible for. What would be shocking, and hard to understand, would be if Seung-Hui led a relatively normal life. Happy, content with his surroundings, no internal beef with the outside world. But as is most always the case with mass murderers of this nature, Seung-Hui was deeply unhappy, uncomfortable with his surroundings, and had several bones to pick with the outside world and the Virginia Tech campus at large. Same old story. Which brings us back to ISMAIL AX.

Liviu Librescu, a 76 year old Holocaust survivor, remains one of the sole heros of the day. He alone stood between dozens of students and Seung-Hui, and sacrificed his own life in order to save the lives of others. Alec Calhoun turned just before leaping to safety from the classroom window and was met with the heroic image of an elderly man holding shut the door. It wasn't long before the bullets from the maniac on the other side penetrated the wood, and ended Librescu's life. A maniac with apparently no other motive to kill so many people other than the fact that he was, well, maniacal. And ISMAIL AX was written on his arm.

In Islamic texts, Ismail (Ishmael in Hebrew) is the son of Abraham and the ancestor of the Arab people. It is the classic story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his only son and moments before Abraham is about to carry out God's wishes, God stops Abraham's blade and rewards him for his loyalty. The story is the same in Islam. Save for the names are slightly different, and in some accounts Abraham is wielding an ax instead of a knife. Also in the Islamic translation, Abraham destroys a number of pagan statues. Here is an account of the occurance as read from the site Islamicity.com:

"After making sure that nobody was left in town, Ibrahim went towards the temple armed with an ax. Statues of all shapes and sizes were sitting there adorned with decorations. Plates of food were offered to them, but the food was untouched. "Well, why don't you eat? The food is getting cold." He said to the statues, joking; then with his ax he destroyed all the statues except one, the biggest of them. He hung the ax around its neck and left."

The statues were idols to Abraham's people; substitutions for a real god. In Islam, they represent everything that is pagan and unholy. A rejection of Allah. Disgusted with his people's lack of faith, with their pride in the false images they created, Abraham did what he assumed necessary by destroying the false gods.

"How big was the shock when the people entered the temple! They gathered inside watching in awe their gods broken in pieces."

We know for sure that Seung-Hui took issue with the "debauchery" and "richness" of his fellow students, with the whole of society. He saw the students of Virginia Tech as representations of these sins. He saw us all as graven images. He saw himself as righteous. And with his ax, he dashed us all to bits.

It's hard to start churning out theories this early on. But it's not hard to start making suggestions based off of some rather off-putting coincidences. If they are, in fact, coincidences then they are of rather Biblical proportions. If not, then we can buck the whole lone, crazed gunman idea and chalk Virginia Tech down as yet another idealistic jihadist attack on the Infidels.

And why not? April 16th was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yom Hashoah, in Israel and Judaism. What better way to turn Holocaust Remembrance Day into Virginia Tech Jihad Remembrance Day? The fact that that school's one and only Holocaust survivor, in an engineering classroom on a 2,600 acre campus was murdered on the day dedicated to an event he lived through is a little hard to pass off as mere coincidence.

Last year, Liviu Librescu received a prestigous scholoarship at that year's 17th International Conference on Adaptive Structures and Technologies for his paper titled, "Robust Aeroelastic Control of Composite Aircraft Wings in Incompressible Flow." The paper was written with four coleagues, their names: Gwon-Chan Yoon, Sungsoo Na, Zhanming Qin and Seung-Chul Baek. Three of these individuals are from South Korea, the country of Librescu's murderer's birth. I guess maybe I'm reaching. All of this means everything, or all of it means nothing but a string of eerie coincidences.

And even then: 32 Infidels were murdered on Holocaust Remembrance Day and Yom Hashoah (including one Israeli Holocaust survivor) by a killer with an Islamic reference written across the arm used to kill them. So the Islamic radicals must be pretty happy with these random coincidences; they should really stop trying so hard and just let Allah do all the work.

The New Feminism

I had a thought the other day. Am I the only person (in my respective age group anyway) that isn't understanding the public's recent fawning over Christina Aguilera? Pardon me, USO-Style Christina Aguilera: Limited Edition.

You remember the Dirrty Skank Edition? Or the Naked & Proud Edition. Or the X-Tina Edition. Those were fun, for a spell. Although the Naked Edition didn't have quite enough outfits with it to make it even nominally interesting after a couple hours. Certainly we all remember the videos. Or maybe some of us don't, depending on the strength of our parental blocking technology. As one friend described it to me before I had seen it: "You can smell the tuna coming through the TV screen." A rather off color visual; but then again, so is the video.

Isn't Aguilera just another on the long boring list of "Pop Princesses Gone Bad"? They're cute, and bubbly, and we collectively pinch their cheeks for a while. Then they grow up, get a nose ring, and start welcoming lower forms of cheek-pinching at clubs on Sunset, seven nights a week. Wait, didn't Christina have a nose ring during the bubbly stage? Then she essentially kicked it up a notch every year thereafter. Now she's the clean-cut, near appropriately clothed enough, 40's pin-up, USO Christina Aguilera. With "singing to the troops" action...trashy singing. Am I the only one that can still see the USED tag sticking out of the new white dress? It's like when bruised and tattooed porn actresses dress up like Lil' Bo Peep for Halloween. It's hard to believe someone with an I LOVE (picture of rooster here) tattoo does nothing more than "tend" to those sheep.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in redemption and also in forgiveness...but something just seems off about this whole Aguilera dog and pony show. Suddenly I'm supposed to take her seriously as a "musician" because she traded in the black lipstick for some more conservative red. Truth be told, I'm just waiting for her to rip off the sailor uniform and grind on a Marine in an American flag bikini. I'm sure this is what the real sailors even showed up for in the first place. So far, much to their dismay, she has remained suspiciously well-behaved. Call me a cynic, but I'm just not buying it. Something smells fishy...no pun intended.

Maybe I missed the boat on this argument. It's been a while since X-Tina...sorry, USO-Tina has been on the cover of Rolling Stone. For all I know, she's sporting a burqa now, as Jihad Edition Christina Aguilera.

I tend to be a week or so behind on issues relating to pop culture, for good or ill. I'm not a very exciting pundit when the conversation gets into who's walking out of Mr. Chow's and celebrity crotch shots. But I am Hell on wheels if someone happens to mention the works of John Cassavetes. How do I function in modern society? You might ask. Answer: with a great deal of difficulty, my friend. Sometimes I even find it near impossible to go out of my apartment. But at least I've got my health.

All sarcasm aside, I'd have to be living in some kind of cave not to have noticed the recent nose dives girlies like Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan have been pulling off, in plain view of the public. Nay, it'd have to be one of those caves on Mars even...a warm, and comfortable cave of blissful ignorance. Unfortunately I live on a street sandwiched smack in between Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard. In fact, if Norma Desmond could possibly pop a few in my back just after I publish this, that'd make my proximity to these ex-pop divas all the more worth it. Every time I hear a police siren out my window, it could either be responding to one of the million plus illegal immigrants milling around the city, or to Paris Hilton, speeding by my apartment building on a midnight diet of In & Out Burger, Margaritas and X. I pay the taxes on that police cruiser now, I should at least know what Party Girl they're after, and what she's being pulled over for this time.

Aside from knowing the boys down at the LAPD are keeping me safe from too many unsolicited crotch shots, I feel I know just enough to be justified in saying: "who gives a shit", when it comes to hearing another story about any of these chicks from this night forward (this would be a good cue for Norma to pull the trigger, but alas I'll continue).

Pop music's reigning Queen of alternative, punk feminism Avril Lavigne appears on the current issue of JANE magazine and is quoted on the cover as saying, "I'm not a party person, and I always wear underwear." Great, reassuring point. Now go forth and continue making horrible music. What does she want, a fuckin' medal? So now the standard for positive female role models, in our culture, is the girl who doesn't routinely display her vagina. The girl who doesn't go bottomless to clubs, shave her head, and make (not all that inaccurate) claims to being the Anti-Christ.

I went to sleep at some point in time and woke up to discover that the new feminism means not the right to vote, the right to work, or the right to sing; but the right to be voted on at a wet t-shirt contest, the right to work the streets, and the right to sing...dirrty. We're suddenly back to dragging our women around by the hair and tuning out if they use any phrases other than "hot" or "where's the party?" And the media is gobbling this up and spewing it out faster than Lindsey Lohan does on the corner of Camden and Wilshire on any given night of the week.

I can't help but wonder: if they just stopped turning the cameras on these irresponsible (socially or otherwise), self-destructive, talentless air heads...would they close up shop (or, at least their panty-less thighs) and go home?

Who knows? What came first, the chicken legs or the birth controlled egg? Maybe the demand for a reversal of feminist ideals in this country became so great that the young girls who could have had so much going for them back when they could still sing before the Marlboro menthols, decided to give the people what they wanted and drop the G-string. Or maybe we always wanted more out of our female role models for our sisters and daughters, but turned around one day to find they had grown up and have long since passed out at the bar. Whatever the case, they'll either go to rehab or escape...at this point, who cares. What's to become of our sisters and daughters?

Like anyone who has hung around a Party Girl long enough to eventually grasp the kind of pathetic concept, the media will inevitabley get bored and move on to something probably more boring and/or socially damaging. But the dust will have already settled on our unfortunate, and always impressionable, young girls. And it's up to us to convince them that there's more talent in their little fingers, and more feminism in their futures, than any one of the self-proscribed Party Monsters down the street from me that will hopefully go the way of Genie-in-a-Bottle Edition Christina by this time tomorrow.