Despite all that is going on in the world, the biggest story for the
past week has been the death of Michael Jackson. In fact, it's reported
that his funeral, now scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 7 at the
Staples Center in Los Angeles, will be watched by tens of millions
worldwide and that his elaborate funeral procession will at least rival
those of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy.
And as it was with Camelot, there has been no shortage of reactions
to the King of Pop's untimely end. Fans have been saddened. Critics
have, understandably, been muted. And the media have been reporting at
a fever pitch, trying to capture television ratings and Web traffic.
But my thoughts are a bit different: our reaction to Jackson's death —
and life — speaks volumes about our society.
It has been interesting
watching the response to the Honduran military’s recent ousting of its nation’s
president, Manuel Zelaya.Barack Obama called
the action “not legal” and Hillary Clinton said that the arrest of Zelaya
should be condemned.Most interesting,
perhaps, is that taking this position places them shoulder to shoulder with
Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan’s roaring mouse, Hugo Chavez, who is
threatening military action against Honduras.Now, some would say this is an eclectic group — others would say, not so
much — regardless, what has gotten them so upset?
We all remember the infamous Duke University rape frame-up case, in
which three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a
black female stripper. It was front-page news coast to coast, as it had
all the elements of a mainstream-media cause célèbre: the perfect
victim and the perfect villains, a “downtrodden” black woman of modest
means and three “privileged” white college boys. Thus did the hard-left
alliance of media, academia, and a Democrat prosecutor try its best to
lynch the three, and if the stripper’s story hadn’t changed with the
wind, the students could very well be sitting in prison currently.
But now we have a real Duke rape case, and one that largely conforms
to the above narrative. Frank Lombard, Duke’s associate director of the
Center for Health Policy, faces federal criminal charges for offering
his adopted five-year-old adopted son for sex. Where are the parallels?
Lombard is white and well-to-do while his victim, the son, is black
(Lombard also has a second adopted son, who is black as well).
The marital infidelity of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and
Nevada senator John Ensign provides yet more ammunition to those who
would attack morality.
By Selwyn Duke
When I placed Governor Mark Sanford's name and the word "hypocrite"
into the Google search engine, it yielded 14,700 results. Since he
admitted that he had an extra-marital affair and given the rise of the
morality assassins, this isn't surprising. Nothing pleases libertines
like finding out that someone who shone light on their darkness has
joined them in the muck.
Congressman John Conyers' Wife Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribes Monica Conyers, wife of Rep. John Conyers and Detroit City Council member, has just pled guilty to awarding a sludge contract to a Houston company in exchange for cash bribes. It is an offense punishable with up to five years in prison.
In reality, this video has nothing to do with her malfeasance; it does, however, perfectly illustrate the kind of person she is. In it she attacks a fellow council member, calling him "Shrek." She also complains about how he was "disrespectin'" her. Well, although I wouldn't be surprised if she wriggles out of prison time, I'd like to see how much she be respected in the big house.
If you're wondering why I've covered this, it's just because I want to return the favor. After all, during the immigration debate in 2007, Rep. Conyers cited me on the House floor, saying:
In the current debate on immigration, for example, conservative commentator
Selwyn Duke just yesterday inveighed against any immigration (legal or not). He warned, ‘‘[R]eplace our population with a Mexican or Moslem one and you no longer have a western civilization, you no longer have America. You have Mexico North
or Iran West.’’
As we have heard in other hearings before this Subcommittee, however, nothing can be further from the truth.
So now I want to give him some exposure as well. And since he was kind in his rejection of my incisive commentary, I'll return that favor also. Rep. Conyers, there are no hard feelings whatsoever. If you have to be married to the harridan in the above video, you have my sympathy, buddy. You have my sympathy.
You know, given that Rep. Conyers will actually have some peace if his better half does a stretch, I can just see him lobbying on her behalf: "Listen, if you give her more than five years, I'm reeeeeally going to be upset! Really, really upset. I dare you!"
In this age of budget woes and bailouts, it may surprise some to hear
that governments are paying workers to do nothing. Yet that is exactly
what is happening in New York City, where hundreds of school teachers
accused of misconduct — sometimes the sexual variety — are receiving upwards of $70,000 annually to wile away time in "temporary reassignment
centers," with taxpayers footing the bill to the tune of $65 million a
year. Karen Matthews of the Associated Press reports:
Because their union contract makes it
extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by
the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where
they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.
Today I'm going to respond to a reader who had a question relating to my last article, "Which Side Really Inspires Violence, the Right or Left?" Here is the email the reader, LR, sent:
Brooke Greenberg - An Eternal Baby?? - 2005 Most of you have heard of progeria, the rare genetic condition that causes children to exhibit symptoms that resemble aging. Well, this is a story about a girl who is, in a way, stuck in time; she now should be an adolescent but still has the physical and mental development of a toddler. This news piece was done when she was 12, but today, at 16, she still looks the same.
The girl is the only known person in the world with such a condition and doctors are stumped as to the cause. However, they believe that studying her case may provide insight into the aging process.
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