Another Triumph for Feminism

The prosecutor, the DA, and the judge - all pee sitting down. The accused has spent his entire life viciously raping women. The decision? Exactly what you'd expect. Aw, the poor widdle baby. Here, let me kiss it and make it all better. Hush now, your father is a bad, bad man, it's not your fault.

Question 1: Any man worth the name will do whatever it takes, and usually far more, to protect his wife and daughters. Women were never expected to join the posses going after the rapists and deadbeats. So, am I crazy, or would a male judge have been much, much harsher with this monster? Or, is this not a women thing, but a spineless liberal thing?

Question 2: Going by the pic in the article, exactly how comfortable do you suppose the defense attorney's shoes are?

My Book to Help America

No, not mine. His. Doubt we'll see anything like that again (except, naturally, as an exercise in teaching children irony, workin' 'em up to cheer for Colbert with all the cool kids).

Nobody puts Baby in a corner...

... unless Baby doesn't actually want to kill babies, that is.

Please take a couple minutes to digest this interview over at HotAir. So creepy.

This went on at Harvard to a much, much lighter extent. Never had one-on-one meetings with RAs, and I'm quite sure none of my conversations were typed up for the university files to keep track of my progress and "treatment." But I do remember the stand-in-the-corners game, good times! The facilitator (this was not the RA, just some random sensitivity trainer, as I recall) would ask about some controversial issue and then have us stand in different parts of the room depending on what our positions were. Always done in small groups of ten to fifteen, so you could see where everyone stood. The only point of the whole silly exercise was to immediately (this happened during the first week or so of school) point out and isolate the conservative minority (it's college, we're always the minority) - to quite literally put them in a corner. Liberals dream these hippie exercises up because they know it would work on them - that is, faced with isolation, they would cave and believe whatever it took to get them back with the crowd, maybe come up with some chants, paint a few signs, pass around a fat j, whatever, it's cool, dude, don't be a fascist. Unfortunately for them, with conservatives, this sort of stuff just backfires, since we enjoy pissing them off and like being troublemakers.

My point being, yes, please do get yourselves all up in arms over the Delaware sitch (yeah, I said sitch, deal with it), which is ridic, but don't forget that less blatant attempts at indoctrination are going on at just about every other campus, too.

And no, it doesn't really matter to most intelligent people (my dad's only concern as he underwent both nazi and communist indoctrination was to keep from giggling), but it certainly does do harm to the naive and unsuspecting. In any case, it's a total waste of time, perhaps even more so than actual college classes.

Now that's what I'm talking about

You do. not. mess. with Rachel Lucas.

Ann Coulter

is not just trying to sell more books. She actually believes what she says, and has a sense of humor to boot. Party 'conservatives' who condemn her are batting close to zero in both categories. They're the ones trying to further their careers by playing nice, rather than risking exile from the mainstream by telling the truth. They condemn nothing - not Islam, not the immoral, not the traitors in our midst - nothing, that is, except Ann Coulter (and maybe, if they want to feel extra good about themselves, Bill O'Reilly, too. I mean, he's just so loud!). The same way that the only thing the Harvard Republican Club ever spoke out against was the campus conservative magazine. These people are spineless, pathetic, and, maddeningly, on the fast track to power and influence.

(h/t Hector Owen)

Evil

Maybe it's my misplaced Western idealism, maybe something is getting lost in translation, but the more time I spend here in Seoul, the more disturbed I get by the people around me.

I'm not talking about the easy cultural cheap shots like the absolutely insane stress over college admissions. I'm talking big questions here. The biggest, in fact: the problem of evil. In South Korea, this is no abstract condition - it is concrete, and it is mere miles away.

The North Korean regime is pure evil. No discussion. Its gulags and concentration camps, its torture, its forced famines, its absolute totalitarianism - this is as evil as it gets, as it has ever gotten.

And South Koreans don't really give a damn.

That's how it seems to me, anyway. Remember that short story about the town where utopia is achieved at the price of one child, locked in a basement, enduring constant abuse? That's what Seoul reminds me of (well, except for the utopia part). People just going about their lives, buying their high-fashion clothes, practicing their SATs, unconcerned that the most evil horrors in the history of the world are taking place a stone's throw away.

And this isn't like Americans being too busy to worry about Darfur. This would be like Americans turning a blind eye to a violent dictatorship in Iowa. Do you think that could ever happen? Even if the Iowa Supreme Ruler had his finger on the button?

I mean, North Koreans are their countrymen, their cousins. And yet, nothing. The only thing here people seem to organize against is the American military presence - the one force keeping them from sharing the North's fate.

Another story: earlier this year, a very small group of Koreans traveled to Afghanistan to help the sick and the poor (they were, oddly enough, Christian missionaries - who would have guessed?), only to be kidnapped by the Taliban. Folks here mostly just shrugged it off, or even made fun of them - the feeling was, they pretty much got what they deserved. Why stick your neck out for someone else? Wisdom, in its twisted, well-educated, immoral modern manifestation, is a virtue here. Sacrifice is not.

I mean, honestly, what is wrong with these people? The more I interact with them, the more time I spend talking to parents and children who think by far the most important thing in life is getting into a famous school, the more I wonder. Churches are everywhere, their neon crosses glaring through the night. Do they know that the only electricity in the North goes into its fences? There might not be any prison camps here, but there is evil nonetheless.

This is gonna be good

The Bluths, Dwight, and the man behind Thank You For Smoking. I cannot wait to see Juno:



Looks, moreover, like another entry in today's family values funny film renaissance. Like Kathy Shaidle likes to say (well, no, not exactly), you wanna make a difference, put down the rosary and pick up the seltzer!

(h/t to Dennis Miller)

Winona Ryder and Marisa Tomei making out

Sorry for the light blogging, I've been super-busy at work the past few days.

As for the title of the post, I cannot, alas, deliver. It was just my way of expressing my excitement over what I consider to be the blogosphere equivalent, namely Kathy Shaidle's recent habit of linking to Rachel Lucas (here and here). If Althouse starts linking to the two of them, well, I'll be in my bunk.

A comment on the Derbyshire post Kathy links to: absolutely I agree with the pretty/sexy dynamic, but if you watch The Great Lie and tell me Bette Davis isn't the goshdarned prettiest thing this side of Pollyanna, then you're worse than Hitler.

As for the horror movie list, how on earth can they claim that Tremors is the fifth best conservative horror movie of all time? It is, in point of fact, the absolute greatest movie of all time.

I would also like to disagree with the "liberals are 'vampire' people, conservatives are 'Frankenstein' people" remark, but I won't, because to do so would reveal far more about the Buffyverse than I would ever publicly admit to knowing...

On to the 80's music list. Sorry, Kathy, but "Wanted Dead or Alive" blows. "Eye of the Tiger," on the other hand, certainly is up there, but the greatest 80s song ever is, hands down, "Holding Out for a Hero."



Well, that's it for now. Work should be lighter this week, so don't go away for too long!


Okay, okay, a little Marisa to close with, I can't help myself:

Good Interview

Check it out.

My favorite lines:

"Smoking kills you, but life kills you, and if you don’t want to die, go into a freezer when you are born and nothing will happen to you."

and, of course: "What is sexy about having something that looks like a goose anus?"

Never read her comic myself, but sounds interesting.

Hey, it builds character!

I have a deep and personal hatred for communists, so I'm obviously no big fan of China, but of all the reasons to hate them, I cannot understand this focus on lead in children's toys.

Heck, in my pappy's day, kids ate lead sandwiches from asbestos lunchboxes. After school, they'd throw cherry bombs at girls and then have thermometer-eating contests. For dinner, pot roast - but only if they finished all their lead first.

I mean, seriously, they used to ride rusty bikes without helmets and make go-carts out of planks from the dump and eat dirt just because, and there ain't a goshdarned thing wrong with 'em!

Kids today? Forget eating dirt, you're liable to get suspended for bringing a peanut butter sandwich to school! Heck, if a kid would happen to sketch a gun with his knife in some peanut butter, he's bound to be expelled for good and sent to juvy.

I say it's time to stop coddling the little wimps. A little lead exposure never hurt anyone. Let the chicoms poison 'em, it'll only make them stronger!

The Ivy Calf

Black people in America are walking head-first into tragedy. No, not those black people - not the gangsters, thugs, and deadbeats. No, I'm talking about the decent and the honorable - concerned reformists, devoted teachers, loving parents.

These good people know what's wrong with modern black culture. They know that it must be changed. Their tragedy is that what they believe to be the cure may very well turn out to be the final nail in the coffin.

Bill Cosby has a new book out, speaking more hard truth to black power. Bloggers and commenters, talk show hosts and callers, all are abuzz. And it hit me, as I encountered more and more wonderful and hopeful comments, that black people may be doomed. Comment after comment was about the need for black kids to escape ghetto culture by staying in school and working hard. Everybody was talking about how wrong it was that studious black kids were accused of 'acting white,' how we should try our best to make them see the importance of learning. I remember one caller in particular, a woman on the verge of tears, explaining how she wished her people would realize that their only way to escape, their only way to a brighter future, was not through rap or crime, but through education. That they needed to buckle down and go back to school, go to college, if they were to have any hope at all.

I was thoroughly depressed by that woman. I know how sincere she was, how deeply she meant well, yet she may as well have been encouraging young women to flee from rapists straight into the arms of murderers. I think by now you have a pretty good idea of what my point is going to be, so here goes:

Education will not save you.

Trust me, folks, I've been to college, it ain't what it used to be. If you're lucky, you'll make it out mostly unharmed. If not, you will lose your soul to debauchery, moral relativism, and egotism. And, if on top of it all you're black, you will more likely than not come out of it all hating America, paranoid about racism, and blaming everybody but yourself for, well, just about everything. In other words, you'll be a liberal.

So, concerned black parents, you want to save your kids? Don't send 'em to college.

Send them to church.

At Harvard's founding, its motto, Veritas, referred to the divine Truth of salvation. By now, that meaning is even more obsolete than the campus war memorials. It's probably only a matter of time before they change it to Cave Canem or something. You want to be saved? College is not the answer.

College will not make you a loving father. College will not make you a faithful husband. College will not make you a better person. And it sure as hell won't help you quit taking drugs.

If these are changes you need to make in your life (in other words, if you're a black 'man'), and you feel incapable of making them on your own, then, please, for the love of God, start going to church. Put down that crack pipe, put away that syllabus, and pick up the Bible.

As for the black reformists, those so bravely speaking out and facing the wrath of the Sharptons out there, please, don't let your struggle be for naught. Don't put your faith in the false gods of the campus, they will only let you down.

King Harvest is on his way

This is silly, but, hey, I'll take whatever chance I can get to post a video of my favorite band:




I like Neil Young, too, so let's put 'em together:

I missed this one last week...

but you shouldn't!

Well, if you put it that way...

A budding academic superstar, hurt by mockery of intellectuals in the National Post, responds with true eloquence:

"Mr. Fulford's pot-shot at queer theory is derisive and disrespectful, clearly reaching for the sympathies of a conservative readership. [...] Ultimately, queer theory offers strategies of deconstruction to challenge the way dominant discourses stratify society, to identify and break down the binary oppositions implicit in dominant modes of thought, which have implications for challenging the inner workings of a heterosexist, sexist social system."

Glad she cleared that up!

Sweet, Sweet Revenge

Death to the grey squirrel!

Tasing works!

Then: large demonstrations, lewd chanting, political theatre, self-induced vomiting.

Now: twelve-person silent walkout.

(alternate headline: Don't tase me, bro - tase my fetus!)

Movie Corner

I never liked Cronenberg, and I maintain that Crash may very well be the worst movie ever, but I have to admit, I just saw Eastern Promises, and it was great. Meanwhile, A History of Violence is probably my favorite movie of the past two or so years. My point being, I don't know what's gotten into him, maybe it's just Viggo's influence, but Cronenberg has gone from national embarrassment to international treasure, putting out not only the best movies in Canada these days, but very possibly the best in the world. Anyway, I've become a fan, is all.

As long as I'm talking movies, I might as well throw in my mini-review of 3:10 to Yuma. I'm taking Udolpho's side on this one; I thought it was pretty terrible. Bale and Crowe are the best there is, but the director is a spastic joke. Westerns need to be as cold and distant as their heroes, yet the camera was constantly jostling up close to the men and giving us extreme closeups. It's real hard to be a bad*** gunslinger when the director won't stop moving the camera around long enough for you to get off a good stare, not to mention stop zooming in on every one of your pores. I'm thinking especially of Leone's spaghetti westerns with Eastwood, and Unforgiven, too (which, unlike Udolpho, I love). Those were shot like real westerns; Yuma was shot like City Slickers or something, I kept on expecting Billy Crystal to pop up at any moment. And, yes, the whole cheap psychobabble characterizations and the ridiculous ending were beyond insufferable. Yet people really seemed to enjoy it, which in my mind only goes to show how badly we're in need of some real westerns again these days to show folks what it's really all about. Cronenberg, Viggo, I'm looking at you!

The World This Week

Al? Apotheosis.
Ayaan? Abandonment.

Adrian? Appalled.

Update: Wow, part II

I never, ever thought I'd say this, but I am very pleasantly surprised - thrilled, even - by the latest efforts of the Harvard administration.

I wrote about the attack on undergraduate drinking they launched last week. Well, much to my shock and delight, the administration is not backing down. If anything, they've gotten even tougher: all funding to the student council has been frozen until the beer money program ends.

I'll add another link to that Crimson article; I'm too tired right now to go into it at length, but it's definitely worth reading for the unintentionally hilarious college student posturing. The kids just want someone else to pay for their booze, they are so pissed that they might have to buy their own jello shots. But, of course, they cannot actually come out and say that in public, for print. So instead we get all these great lines about social inequality (the rich will don robes to sip brandy by the fire, turning their backs on the faces of the underclass pressed longingly up against the window, their shivering hands clutching tight to cans of PBR) and the creation of a dangerous drinking culture (cheap, low-quality aluminium kegs imported from China are reported to have serious structural flaws, with a significant risk of collapse during keg stand attempts, potentially leading to serious head trauma).

The administration is having none of it. I simply must quote the Assistant Dean's comment: "The reality is the administration is not forcing any student to do anything illegal or dangerous. They’re making a choice to do that." An Ivy League college actually making a case for personal responsibility?? Maybe it's the administration that's been drinking!

Anyway, like I said, I'm loving this, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Because self-absorbed college students these days might scoff at most of the freedoms in America (and don't even get me started on freedoms in the rest of the world), but, I assure you, they will go to the barricades for free drinks. Look for a repeat of sixties radicalism as administration buildings are invaded for massive sit-ins. After all, the choice to not drink yourself senseless on someone else's dime three nights a week is not really a choice at all.

Nothing to add

to this.


Well, okay, maybe one thing.