Feb 28 2010

The Descent of “24”

Category: media,society — harmonicminer @ 10:01 am

The FOX TV show “24” continues to go downhill.  Sadly.  It used to be pretty good.

Jack is getting stupider, the writing is getting worse and worse, the setups of personal motivations are more cartoon-like (come on…  this little plot line of the head CTU data analyst having a “secret identity” not found by a background investigation is risible), and the “fight scenes” and “interrogations” even sillier.

Just for example:  imagine you are an experienced FBI agent with undercover missions and considerable experience with violent action under your belt.  Imagine that even though this is so, you are a slender female, who has killed a big, strong man, in self-defense, because you were in fear for your life…  since he had his hands wrapped around your neck and was strangling you.  And imagine that you managed to grab a knife and stab him multiple times, and he has died of his wounds.

Now imagine you are being questioned by a barracuda Justice Dept lawyer who insists that since you stabbed your assailant multiple times (instead of stopping after the first thrust), you must have intended to kill him, not merely stop him.

Do you get all teary eyed and shaky and maybe confess you wanted to kill him for other reasons?  Or do you, out of the wealth of background in violence statistics learned by every newbie FBI agent in the academy, remind the lawyer that one stab rarely stops a determined assailant…  that the assailant had a firearm on his belt…  that even though after a couple hits he went down, he STILL had access to the firearm, was not unconscious, could not be presumed inactive, and, in any case, you were weak and shaky from the attack, and simply couldn’t risk that he could get up again, or get his firearm and kill you.

It’s a little thing.  But it undoes my ability to take the “tense interrogation” seriously, and just makes me want to say, “Are these script writers ignorant, or just stupid?”  TV script writers are mostly ignorant about most things…  they are mostly young, they mostly haven’t had another job, they have mostly learned about the world by reading other novels and scripts, not by reading history and books by people who know what they’re talking about, etc. 

I’m really tired of Glocks with manual safeties, the little “snick” every time an agent merely POINTS a gun that was already in hand and presumed ready for use, the ridiculous scenes where someone is using a pump shotgun and has fired it, and is now searching for the person they want to shoot WITHOUT PUMPING THE ACTION to get another round in the chamber, until they SEE the person, and only THEN do they menacingly work the action…. 

Given the prevalence of this cliche, it’s as if someone in Hollywood has convinced all the rest that the sound of a racked shotgun slide is somehow scarier than one with a round in the chamber, ready for use.  Just as with the cliche of gang bangers holding guns horizontally, I hope anyone seeking to do me harm with a shotgun has an empty chamber.

I’m pretty sure that if this season had been the FIRST season of “24”, the show would not have been renewed, because it would not have attracted an audience.  The new owners of the franchise, who had a year LAST season to learn the ropes, and get it right, have done worse this year.  About the only thing that have done right this year is that at least the terrorists appear to be Islamic crazies (although their Ahmandinejad analog comes off as a more muscular Gandhi), instead of an American corporation…  so there is some realism there.  Of course, they still have the time to screw up the plot line and blame it all on Toyota or something.  The season isn’t over yet.

24 used to make some sense to me.  The motivations of the players made some sense.  Jack was impossibly gifted as an agent, and got away with things no one would, but it wasn’t just simply ridiculous every ten seconds. 

Still, the thing is, Hollywood’s presentation of other matters is no better.  Hollywood’s ideas of how business works, how the military works, how the government works, how the church works, what religion even IS, how journalism works, how the justice system works, how the education system works, how the medical system works, how ANYTHING works, are just so stupid, mostly, that it’s hard not to snicker.  In fact, I suspect the only time Hollywood gets it right is when someone writes a script about the skull-duggery behind the scenes of movie-making.

That would be something they know all about.

Feb 24 2010

Raising African-American consciousness about abortion — at last

Category: abortion,media,society — harmonicminer @ 9:30 am

I’ve commented many times on the Shoah of abortion, and how the enormous injustice of it is especially bitter in inner-city minority communities, where Planned Parenthood and its competitors do the largest part of their business.  This is just about the first time I’ve seen serious mention of black abortion rates in the major media.

The message on dozens of billboards across the city is provocative: Black children are an “endangered species.”

The eyebrow-raising ads featuring a young black child are an effort by the anti-abortion movement to use race to rally support within the black community. The reaction from black leaders has been mixed, but the “Too Many Aborted” campaign, which so far is unique to only Georgia, is drawing support from other anti-abortion groups across the country.

“It’s ingenious,” said the Rev. Johnny Hunter, national director of the Life Education and Resource Network, a North Carolina-based anti-abortion group aimed at African-Americans that operates in 27 states. “This campaign is in your face, and nobody can ignore it.”

Oh, I don’t think NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN will have much trouble ignoring it.

The billboards went up last week in Atlanta and urge black women to “get outraged.”

The effort is sponsored by Georgia Right to Life, which also is pushing legislation that aims to ban abortions based on race.

Black women accounted for the majority of abortions in Georgia in 2006, even though blacks make up just a third of state population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationally, black women were more than three times as likely to get an abortion in 2006 compared with white women, according to the CDC.

This understates the real jeopardy of African-American children. It isn’t that it’s false, it’s that it disguises the fact that black children are about five times as likely to be aborted as white children.

“I think it’s necessary,” Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue, said of the billboard campaign. “Abortion in the black community is at epidemic proportions. They’re not really aware of what’s actually going on. If it shocks people … it should be shocking.”Anti-abortion advocates say the procedure has always been linked to race. They claim Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted to eradicate minorities by putting birth control clinics in their neighborhoods, a charge Planned Parenthood denies.

“The language in the billboard is using messages of fear and shame to target women of color,” said Leola Reis, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Georgia. “If we want to reduce the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies, we need to work as a community to make sure we get quality affordable health care services to as many women and men as possible.”

In 2008, Issues4Life, a California-based group working to end abortion in the black community, lobbied Congress to stop funding Planned Parenthood, calling black abortions “the Darfur of America.”

Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler said a race-based strategy for anti-abortion activists has gotten a fresh zeal, especially in the wake of the historic election of the country’s first black president, Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights.

“He’s really out of step with the rest of black America,” Scheidler said. “That might be part of what may be shifting here and why a campaign like this is appropriate, to kind of wake up that disconnect.”

Abortion rights advocates are disturbed. Spelman College professor Beverly Guy-Sheftall called the strategy a gimmick.

Is it a “gimmick” to simply tell the truth?

“To use racist arguments to try to bait black people to get them to be anti-abortion is just disgusting,” said Guy-Sheftall, who teaches women’s history and feminist thought at the historically black women’s college.

“These one-issue approaches that are not about saving the black family or black children, it’s just a big distraction,” she said. “Many black people don’t know who Margaret Sanger is and could care less.”

Stunningly, this “professor” seems to think that’s a good thing.  Why are there so many blacks who don’t know about Margaret Sanger’s opinion of blacks, their value to society (not much in her mind), and the desirability of blacks not reproducing?  These people have been VERY ill served by “black studies” programs and “black history” weeks and so on, which should surely include prominent attention paid to a person who wanted many fewer of them, and helped found Planned Parenthood to bring that outcome about.

On the right side of this page, there are some links for you to click. They are Black Genocide, CURE, Issues4Life, and LEARN.  Educate yourself, if this is new to you.  You cannot support abortion-on-demand, or politicians who support it, and care about the future of African-Americans in the USA.

Feb 20 2010

Gun free zone failure number 60?

Category: college,education,guns,higher education,society — harmonicminer @ 9:07 am

The other kind of IED (intermittent explosive disorder)
Much more at the link.

The New York Times says that a faculty member at the University of Alabama killed 3 and wounded 6 others after being denied tenure at the biology department. Circumstantial evidence suggested that she was upset at what she believed was unfair treatment. The suspect apparently “had told acquaintances recently that she was worried about getting tenure”, and the NYT quoted one source as saying “she began to talk about her problems getting tenure in a very forceful and animated way, saying it was unfair.”

I’ve been to some tense faculty meetings. Meetings with outcomes that had the potential to really change people’s lives who were involved, in one way or another.

So far I haven’t had to duck and cover because somebody started shooting.  But it is starting to seem that the only people who respect the “gun-free zones” on campus are the victims.

Maybe I should start ordering my hoodies to be Kevlar-lined.

Just in case a deranged post-modern prof who gives feminist readings to medieval French poetry happens to go postal.

Feb 17 2010

Tackling the SuperBowl ad controversy – UPDATE!

Category: abortion,media,society — harmonicminer @ 9:29 am

UPDATE!  See the rebuttal ad at the bottom of the original post.

************************

The discussion before the ad was run:

And, in case you missed it, the ad:

You decide.

But it seems clear to me that “pro-choice” still doesn’t mean much more than “pro-abortion.”

NOW thinks that CBS shouldn’t have run the ad because “it might make a woman who had an abortion feel bad”.

******************

UPDATE!  It would seem that NOW has made a rebuttal ad to the Focus on the Family ad.  Here it is:

Many thanks to commenter Bob for directing my attention to this.

Feb 15 2010

You’re on your own

Category: society — harmonicminer @ 12:12 am

3 Seattle bus tunnel guards watch brutal beating

A 15-year-old girl who was badly beaten and robbed in a Seattle bus tunnel as three unarmed security guards looked on told investigators that she thought the men would protect her.

The statements were revealed in court papers filed Wednesday against the teen girl accused of attacking her and the three young men accused of stealing her purse, phone and iPod. The four were all charged with first-degree robbery.

The victim told a King County sheriff’s detective that the group followed her from a nearby department store into the bus tunnel at Westlake Station on Jan. 28, and she deliberately stood next to the three guards.

The guards didn’t intervene, though. They have standing orders to “observe and report,” so they called police but did nothing else as another 15-year-old girl punched and repeatedly kicked the victim in the head.

Get used to it. Think about what it means. Consider your options. No one is likely to help you when you need it most. It’s all up to you.  So stay out of situations if you can…  and decide what you will do if you cannot.  You won’t have time then to think through it.

The USA isn’t quite as bad as Britain…  yet, anyway.  It’s still legal to defend yourself.

Mostly.   If you’re not too effective at it.

Feb 14 2010

Much ado about…. something…. but not what they thought

Category: abortion,left,media,society — harmonicminer @ 9:49 am

That’s It? Tebow Ad Unmasks the Abortion Movement

In the days running up to last weekend’s Super Bowl, the media and blogosphere erupted in a frenzy of debate over an innocuous pro-life ad sponsored by Focus on the Family. The news was that 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother Pam would be featured in a “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life” spot, which, it was assumed, would tell the story of Tim, “the miracle baby” whose mother refused an abortion during a difficult pregnancy. Missionaries in the Philippines, Pam and Bob Tebow refused to choose the doctor-advised abortion option, although Pam had been taking heavy medication following a bout with dysentery.
Without seeing the ad, and with very little information, groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and NOW (National Organization for Women) responded with a fury that awakened mainstream America. Expecting the ad to convey an anti-abortion message, they demanded CBS remove it from airing. A protest letter, penned by the Women’s Media Center, suggested the ad be refused because it was sponsored by Focus on the Family. “By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers, and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers,” the letter said. Jemhu Greene, president of the group, said, “An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year — an event designed to bring Americans together.”
The characters of both Tim and Pam were maligned and subjected to malicious gossip. A charge by feminist Gloria Allred that Pam Tebow was a liar grew wings of its own as it spread throughout talk radio and the Internet. Allred based her charge on the fact that abortion was illegal in the strongly Catholic nation of the Philippines. An ESPN columnist warned Tim not to be manipulated by the far right. “Tebow is not an innocent, and he does not appear to be deluded. He may agree with everything Focus on the Family represents. But he’s still a young man, still breathing the fumes of a home-schooled background with two parents who believe in the inerrancy of every single word of the Bible. Now, they could be right and I could be wrong on the Bible thing, although it’s going to be hard to convince me the whole belly-of-the-whale thing wasn’t allegory, but he could be setting himself up to be associated with causes and beliefs that may not be his own. All the qualities that make him admirable, earnestness, devotion, a willingness to expound on his beliefs, make him vulnerable.”
Both CBS and Focus on the Family assured audiences that the ad had been approved and was suitable for broadcast. Yet the nation was drawn into this debate, as the life issue made its way onto business and sports pages, talk radio, and Facebook pages. Over 250,000 “fans” joined one Facebook group supporting the commercial. Surveys found support for CBS to run the commercial outnumbering its opposition.

Much more at the link above. And it reveals the Left for what it is… essentially totalitarian and against free speech, interested in muzzling anyone who disagrees, and believing that they should be able to suppress a message just because of its source….  or its content.

Feb 13 2010

FLASH! The Religious Right’s big issue isn’t really abortion after all (?!?)

Category: religion,society — harmonicminer @ 9:42 am

The Lefty academics are at it again, this time Making Up Evangelical History.

Randall Balmer is Professor of American Religious History at Barnard College, Columbia University. He has written several books which explore the development of political activism by people of faith, specifically conservative evangelicals.

After describing Balmer’s attempt to revise the history of the “Religious Right” to exclude concern about abortion, marriage and homosexuality, and demolishing Balmer’s claim that the “Religious Right’s” founding was really about racism and money, the author of this review, Paul Edwards at Townhall, says this:

Dr. Balmer is firmly in the camp of those who see the purpose of the Gospel as primarily about reforming the ills of society through social action. He’s part of the new “Religious Left,” a category of evangelicals he denied exists during a recent radio interview with me. While his bias is implicit in his conclusions, it’s also explicitly stated. Not until you get to the end of Balmer’s 84-page revisionism does he show his hand: “For too many years I offered an exasperated defense, arguing that the Bible I read enjoins me to act with justice and points me toward the left of the political spectrum.””The Making of Evangelicalism” is a distortion of facts in support of biased characterizations of conservative evangelicals. In addition to the absurd notion that a defense of the sanctity of life was not the precipitating cause of the formation of the Religious Right, Balmer asserts that conservative Christians opposed women’s rights, supported torture, care more about abortion than divorce, support the destruction of the environment, and favor the affluent more than poor, without once offering a shred of objective balance from those he accuses. This sounds more like Keith Olbermann than a respected historian.

What kind of historian produces a history that presents facts in evidence supporting only half the history? Balmer has not written a history of the making of evangelicalism. The reality is Balmer is “making up” evangelicalism by reading into history a conclusion influenced by his own progressive bias against conservative evangelical political engagement. He has written history as he would like it to have been, not as it was.

Sadly, I suspect that this book will be getting some play among the Christian Left at Christian universities, who are only too happy to criticize the “fundamentalism” they fear more than skepticism, agnosticism, and the social gospel.

Trying to claim that the Religious Right isn’t deeply concerned about divorce is risible on its face, but I do have to say this: it is proper to “care more about abortion than divorce,” for a very simple reason.

No one ever died from being divorced.

Feb 11 2010

My famous relative left the booze behind

Category: history,society — harmonicminer @ 9:23 am

Ernest Shackleton’s Whiskey Found Buried Near South Pole

It’s probably the most sought-after scotch in history, crates of whiskey buried in Antarctica by the famed explorer Ernest Shackleton a century ago. He abandoned them on a failed attempt to reach the South Pole in 1909, and they’ve been on ice, literally, ever since.

Researchers from New Zealand found the crates while restoring a hut Shackleton built and used during the expedition. He and his team were forced to cut short the trip and abandon supplies, including their booze, to sail away before winter ice trapped them there.
……

Shackleton’s expedition ran short of supplies on a long trek to the South Pole that began in 1907. He had to turn back about 100 miles from the pole in 1909. The team had to move quickly to escape as winter ice began to form, so they were forced to abandon all but essential equipment and supplies, including their whiskey. No lives were lost.

……

As for what the future holds for Shackleton’s whiskey, there are international treaties preventing the removal of artifacts from Antarctica, but Paterson wrote on his blog that he hopes to get his hands on at least a sample of the whiskey, if not a couple bottles.

“What you all want to know is: How will it taste?” Paterson wrote. “To which the answer is: Cold.”

It was said of Sir Ernest that he wasn’t really trustworthy with other people’s money, or other people’s women, but you could trust him with your life when circumstances were about as bad as they could get.

Feb 10 2010

Is Obama our Gorbachev?

Category: national security,Obama,Russia,socialism,society — harmonicminer @ 9:45 am

Is Obama an American Gorbachev?   And if he is, does that make you feel better?  Pravda certainly seems to love the idea:

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev believes that US President Barack Obama still has the support of the electorate despite opinion polls showing his support slipping. Gorbachev had positive comments and words recently when discussing nuclear disarmament treaty negotiations.

“The election of Obama was not an accident,” Gorbachev said. “It is true however that there has been some slippage in support for him.” While he said that he liked Obama “a great deal,” Gorbachev acknowledged that Obama faces considerable difficulties as he attempts to change his country’s policies.

“US policy is changing, but it’s a difficult process,” he said. Gorbachev feels that the United States had missed “many opportunities” in the past, but chances are better with Obama. “I am very pleased that now Obama has changed course and has gone back to dialogue and the process of nuclear arms control,” said Gorbachev, speaking through an interpreter.

Some have said they see Barack Obama as the US version of Mikhail Gorbachev. When the United States found itself in the midst of a global economic crisis, the administration decided it was time to launch the dialogue and discussion idea for peace in the world spoken about in the campaign. This is what Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to do during his leadership of the Soviet Union. During his trip to Moscow, Obama met with Mikhail Gorbachev.

The United States is suffering from a worst case of “buyer’s remorse” since the fall of Nazi Germany. President Obama under the circumstances can only really work for change in the health care system, which is a life-and-death matter. The sordid rackets so ostentatiously infecting the system boil down vividly to lives ruined and bankrupted, and a system more frightful to deal with than disease itself. Probably the home truth is that health care will end up being rationed one way or another due to the change in the Democratic Congress.

Economically, the US isn’t in a recession it’s in a collapse. Dmitry Orlov outlined the process in his book “Reinventing Collapse” about the parallels between the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the prospects for demise of the US as currently constituted.

Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the Soviet dissolution. In the USA, the outcome this time might not be very appetizing. It would be one of the supreme ironies of history if it turned out that the US was incapable of ending its most self-destructive rackets peacefully and bloodlessly, while Russia made her transition in a peaceful, orderly manner.

Time will tell. Until then, Russia has proven once again she is a reliable, stable and responsible partner in international relations, has tremendous respect in the international community due to the fact that she honours international law and the agreements she signs and provides a remarkable opportunity for investors, showing signs of increasing strength in the fundamentals which underpin the economy.

The main thing to remember about Gorbachev is that he presided over the dissolution of the government he headed, followed by a considerable period of great instability in Russian society, followed by the current more-or-less dictatorship that masquerades as a democracy.

Feb 06 2010

The Left at Christian Universities, part 17: The intolerant lovers of “tolerance”

Category: higher education,society,theology — harmonicminer @ 9:15 am

The previous post in this series is here.

This post is less about the Left AT Christian Universities than it is about the pressures of the Left ON Christian Universities, although the latter is mostly made possible by the presence of the former.  That is, the Left outside of Christian Universities will only be able to pressure them into making concessions with the help of Leftists inside those institutions who encourage leaders to succumb to the pressure.

Blacklisting a Christian University Much more at the link.

According to the Langley Advance, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), the Canadian version of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), has issued a report stating that Christian universities fail to provide faculty members with academic freedom. Specifically the report places Trinity Western University in British Columbia on its list of universities and colleges that have a faith or ideological test as a condition of employment.

There are also professional academic organizations in the USA that are considering taking the position that universities may not require any particular beliefs or lifestyle commitments on the part of employees or job applicants.   This is especially humorous since there are all kinds of “unofficial litmus tests” that virtually any faculty member must accept in order to be hired in the modern university.   Those tests are defended with positively religious fervor, though they are not religious in nature.  Far from it.

Try to get in a job in a university these days if you say in the job interview that you don’t think “diversity” should be a higher value for the university than simply getting the most competent faculty and best prepared students it can get.

It would be wise not to volunteer in the job interview that you think anthropogenic global warming is an enormous scam.

If you happen to think that the Iraq war was a proper use of American military power, it would be wise not to say so until you have tenure.

Do you think that God created human beings in a special act of creation (whether you are an “old earth” creationist, a “young earth” creationist, an “intelligent design” proponent, etc.)?  Just don’t bring it up, and sidestep any questions that may touch on it.

Do you think Sarah Palin would have been better for the USA than Barrack Obama?  Unless you desire to be laughed at as you exit your unsuccessful job interview, don’t let on.

Do you think economic growth and the spread of capitalism is a better aid program for the third world than permanent entitlements in the form of foreign aid?  Better not say so.

Do you think that God’s Word in scripture means pretty much what it says, and that historical understandings of its theological and moral content are correct?  Learn to beat the quasi-polygraph on this one, since, obviously, only bigots and haters believe this.

There are pieties to which all must make obeisance in the world of academia, and they are pretty much the exact reverse of the positions just stated.  Sadly, these same pieties may be defended by all too many in Christian universities as well, and defended more vigorously, at times, than the bedrock commitments one would have thought more central to their mission.

The only question remaining is if Christian universities are going to capitulate to the very real pressures that come along with seeking respectability in the eyes of the secular academic world.   When Christian universities do succumb, it isn’t really the pressures from outside that make it happen….  it’s the pressure from inside.

The scary thing is that those applying that pressure will be quoting scripture as they do it.

The next post in this series is here.

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