Hizzoner v. Harvard (or Menino v. Myopia)
April 22, 2005
It kills me to have to say something nice about Boston Mayor Tom Menino, but I have to give the devil his due: he is right to question the flawed methodology of a study by the Harvard Civil Rights Project that suggests that racial tensions in Boston are just as bad as they were thirty years ago. Not that prejudice has been totally erased in Boston or anyplace else, but if one wants an objective analysis of just how much prejudice still exists in Beantown, one would not necessarily look to the Harvard Civil Rights Project, which is as far to the left as Focus on the Family is far to the right.
The Christian Science Monitor recently had a far more optimistic take on race relations in Boston. Contrast this story with the doom-and-gloom of Harvard’s study…
GOPBS?
April 22, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8067-2005Apr21?language=printer
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/02/arts/television/02public.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Jeez, guys, it’s not like they’re going to turn into Fox News…
Deval Patrick: Race and the Race
April 22, 2005
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/other_stories/multi-page/documents/04621996.asp
Odd article. Former Boston mayoral candidate Mel King says people won’t vote for a black guy, refusing to acknowledge the fact that there are also a lot of people who will vote for Patrick ONLY because he’s black (i.e. "Let’s get a brother in there"). Some genius implies that Patrick isn’t "black enough" to get minority support (oh God, not that "he isn’t black enough" stupidity again). And on and on it goes…
Here’s a question: if Deval Patrick runs against Romney and loses–or if he fails to even get the Democratic nomination because the Massachusetts Democratic political machine decides to get behind Attorney General Tom Reilly–will that be seen as an example of racism, or as an example of hypocritical liberalism?
Connecticut Approves Civil Unions
April 21, 2005
A win-win: Gay and lesbian couples receive legal equality, and religious conservatives don’t have to worry about the definition of marriage being changed. Logically, who should complain?
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/04/22/a_calling_renewed?mode=PF
Former Boston City Councilor Gareth Saunders–whose only major "accomplishment" during his six-year tenure was calling a colleague, Peggy Davis-Mullen, "the Clarence Thomas of white women" after she expressed misgivings about affirmative action–is mulling a run for mayor of Boston. What, is this a practical joke or something?
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/04/22/a_calling_renewed?mode=PF
Former Boston City Councilor Gareth Saunders–whose only major "accomplishment" during his six-year tenure was calling a colleague, Peggy Davis-Mullen, "the Clarence Thomas of white women" after she expressed misgivings about affirmative action–is mulling a run for mayor of Boston. What, is this a practical joke or something?
Jonah Goldberg Strikes Gold
April 21, 2005
http://nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/goldberg/goldberg200504200900.asp
Excellent article by the NRO writer about why progressives were so perturbed by the selection of Cardinal Ratzinger to be the new pope. Many on the left were hoping against hope that Pope John Paul II’s replacement would be less of a "hardliner" on issues such as homosexuality and abortion–however, there was no realistic possibility of anyone besides a traditionalist assuming the papacy, which makes the carping all the more strange.
Here’s an idea–instead of trying to force the Catholic Church to make "reforms" the institution has absolutely no desire to make, why don’t "cafeteria Catholics" like Maureen Dowd, Joan Vennochi, Andrew Sullivan, et al. walk away from the Catholic Church and join, say, the Unitarian Universalist Church, an organization that’s closer to the left on the big social issues? They could put their energy, time and money towards an institution that’s more receptive to their political desires, and wouldn’t risk looking as silly as they do now (seriously, Catholics who want the church to go left on issues such as married/female priests, tolerance of homosexuality, etc., bear a strong resemblance to Haley Joel Osment’s robot in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, begging endlessly to be turned into a real boy). The church, for good or ill, has come down squarely on the side of traditionalism on these issues, and Catholics who oppose this embrace of tradition would be better off leaving the Church and going to a more liberal institution, instead of wasting their time sticking around and hoping in vain for change.
What If They Elected A New Pope, And Nobody Cared?
April 19, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A942-2005Apr19?language=printer
Lots of complaining by progressives on Washingtonmonthly.com and other left-of-center websites concerning the conservative choice…but did anyone really expect the College of Cardinals to select someone to the left of Pope John Paul II on social issues like homosexuality, abortion, and married/female priests? If the Catholic Church wants to encourage the departure of those who disagree with certain aspects of Catholic theology, that is their right. And if the Church does indeed self-destruct because of a desire for ideological conformity…then the Church will have brought that result upon its own head.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/04/19/reilly_says_he_would_not_seek_tax_hike?mode=PF
The question/problem is, does anyone believe him?
If There’s One Thing Worse Than “Nanny-State” Liberals…It’s “Nanny-State” Conservatives
April 18, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61565-2005Apr17?language=printer
I really hate this stupidity from far-right-wingers who want to slice and dice movies with content they don’t like. Really, who in their right mind, or even in their wrong mind, would want to see Taxi Driver without the violence or Scarface without the swearing? Somebody who wants a PG version of Pulp Fiction has a problem with free expression to begin with. What’s next? An edited version of The Passion of the Christ with no flogging or crucifixion?
If There’s One Thing Worse Than “Nanny-State” Liberals…It’s “Nanny-State” Conservatives
April 18, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61565-2005Apr17?language=printer
I really hate this stupidity from far-right-wingers who want to slice and dice movies with content they don’t like. Really, who in their right mind, or even in their wrong mind, would want to see Taxi Driver without the violence or Scarface without the swearing? Somebody who wants a PG version of Pulp Fiction has a problem with free expression to begin with. What’s next? An edited version of The Passion of the Christ with no flogging or crucifixion?
On Your Radio
April 18, 2005
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-anderson18apr18,0,5938952,print.story
A dead-on article by libertarian author Brian C. Anderson about the rise of conservative talk radio in the last fifteen years, and the struggles of Air America. Just as the Democrats should have never nominated John Kerry to run against Bush, the founders of Air America should have never made Al Franken their franchise player. He is boring as hell, his co-host (Katherine Lampher) is boring as hell, his guests (most notably Paul Krugman of the New York Times) are boring as hell, and the show as a whole is boring as hell. Anderson is right when he points out that Air America appears to have made little effort to cultivate a nonwhite listening audience: why couldn’t they select someone like former NPR host Tavis Smiley as their franchise player? He’s just as liberal as Franken, but twice as entertaining.
The backers of Air America apparently selected Franken solely on the basis of his books (most notably 1996’s Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot), which was a gigantic mistake. Just because someone was successful in one medium doesn’t mean they’ll be successful in another: conservative pundit Laura Ingraham was a sharp, perceptive, funny op-ed columnist, but her radio show gives insomniacs dreams. You can’t take anyone off the street and make them a successful talk-radio host; by the time Rush Limbaugh’s show went national in 1988, he had been a broadcaster for fifteen years, more than enough time to develop an entertaining persona.
Anderson also reinforces the point that conservative talk radio did not create the notion of "liberal media bias"; the industry merely took advantage of a perception that had existed since Walter Cronkite repeatedly denounced the Vietnam War on the CBS Evening News in the late-1960s. I can barely stand Rush Limbaugh these days (I used to listen to him religiously years ago, but I was turned off by both his hypocrisy on the issue of drug use/abuse and his ass-backward remarks about Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb), but the fact remains that people like Limbaugh wouldn’t even exist if people perceived the mainstream media to be objective–and as Dan Kennedy of the far-from-conservative Boston Phoenix has pointed out, when it comes to certain issues, most notably gay rights and abortion, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post clearly lean to the left. (For my Boston-area readers, think about this: would anybody really listen to guys like Jay Severin and Howie Carr if people perceived the Boston Globe to be neutral on the issues of the day?)
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
April 18, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59554-2005Apr16?language=printer
I don’t think this strategy by Focus on the Family (d/b/a the Family Research Council) and the religious right is going to work. Seriously, does anyone really believe that the Democrats are opposing some of Bush’s judicial nominees because of "anti-religious bigotry"? If anything, the Democrats are holding up these confirmations for the same reasons that the Republicans held up Clinton’s judicial nominees in the 1990s–sheer partisan politics.
If Howard Dean Screams In The Forest, And No One Is Around To Hear Him, Does He Make A Sound?
April 18, 2005
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-04-16-dean-schiavo_x.htm?csp=34&POE=click-refer
Brilliant, eh? Tell the Republicans your strategy for beating them NINETEEN MONTHS in advance? What a Rhodes scholar!!!
Seriously, Dean is full of BS (Breathtaking Stupidity) on this one. If it’s wrong for the GOP to exploit Terri Schiavo’s plight for political gain (and it was), how can it be OK for the Democratic Party to do the same?
Weekend Box Office: The Horror, The Horror
April 17, 2005
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=493&ncid=762&e=2&u=/ap/20050417/ap_en_mo/box_office
No surprise that The Amityville Crap took first place. The current box-office slump addressed in the article obviously has to do with the fact that there’s no Passion of the Christ-style first-quarter blockbuster this year. The only thing that’s done anywhere near Passion-style numbers so far this year has been Will Smith’s Hitch, which has pulled in nearly $200 million domestically.
