Why and How to Get a Balanced News/opinion-media Diet
February 28, 2022
This is your friendly periodic reminder that* we all need to consume a balanced diet of journalism including both** liberal and conservative news/opinion sources.
Read the rest of this entry »To Make Black Americans Feel Adequately Listened to, and Heal our Nation’s Racial Divide, All You Have to Do Is…
August 3, 2020
The (black) host of NPR’s “It’s Been a Minute” and his (black) guest, who do not think they are being ironic or asking too much:
SANDERS: There is also an entire chapter on navigating an interracial friendship. And I’ve really enjoyed it. And y’all quote a poem that says, quote, “the first thing you do is forget that I’m Black. Second, you must never forget that I’m Black.” And this was advice on a white person trying to be a Black person’s friend. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Unpack that for me because it’s a word.
SOW: Whew.
(Emphasis added.)
Oh, is that all?
Things You Hear on NPR: Benghazi Investigations Found ‘no wrongdoing by the Obama administration’
July 27, 2020
NPR a few days ago, regarding the possibility of a Susan Rice pick for the Joe Biden ticket:
Frederick Douglass’s lengthy 1852 speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” is blistering in its critique of American immorality and hypocrisy on the issue of slavery:
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? . . .
Trends
June 13, 2020
June 13th, 2073
REPORTER: Yes as you can see I’m here at the site of the statue to the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in the state capital, where protesters are forming a crowd around the pedestal. Here we are, beg your pardon—yes, you there, tell us about your protest?
Everybody Draw Mohammed Day 2020
May 20, 2020
The Mohammed drawing will continue until it’s safe to draw Mohammed.
For the awesome Bosch Fawstin, pretty much every day is Draw Mohammed Day.
Ex-Muslims of North America reprise some of the classics.
Happy Easter!
April 12, 2020
Beer and Biology for St. Patrick’s Day
March 17, 2020
For anyone looking for a silly song to distract from a dark time—happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Happy Feast of St. Stephen!
December 26, 2019
As Seen In the classic Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas”:
The children’s cartoon Phineas and Ferb is surprisingly traditional (and educational!) on the subject:
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, as it’s officially known, has broad support across the political spectrum. The majority of Democrats and Republicans tell pollsters that they support protections for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — called DREAMers.
Slavery, Prostitution Ring in ‘Massage Parlors’ across Four Counties in Florida Busted
February 28, 2019
Bad news, and good news: As you’ll have heard, there is still slavery in the world, and there is still (or again) slavery in America, operating in the shadows. The good-news story is that some of the human traffickers have been busted.
A local sheriff, on the investigation he led:
Well, that’s one of the reasons why this sex trafficking continues at such a pace. Invariably, our methodology has been up until we did this here — send a couple of undercover detectives in. They’ll be solicited for sex, will arrest the workers and shut the place down. And the problem goes away, but not really goes away.
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 21, 2019
In the tradition of Christian martyrs, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., lost his life but won the war. In the years after his assassination, his call for America to live up to her founding principles, his vision of all people treating all people as fellow human beings regardless of color, became the national consensus.
A fascinating alternative perspective from the left, from an Alison Willmore, at Buzz Feed:
Why I’ve Had Trouble Buying Hollywood’s Version of Girl Power
I get the desire to take comfort in cheerful stories of women’s triumph, from Ocean’s 8 to On the Basis of Sex. But in 2018, I haven’t found them very comforting.
When President Obama and the founding editor of National Review Online agree on something, it might be true.
. . . Obama is right . . . . Slavery and Jim Crow were indisputably manifestations of identity politics. America’s system of legalized racism was just another form of aristocracy under a different name. And as such, it was a violation of the best ideas of the Founding. Perhaps the single most radical thing about the American Revolution was the decision to reject all forms of hereditary nobility.
It took longer — far too much longer — to recognize the rights and dignity of all Americans, but the idea that you should take people as you find them, and judge them not as a member of a group but as individuals, remains perhaps the greatest part of the American creed, regardless of whether you’re a liberal or a conservative.
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 21, 2018
I turned on the radio to find that today even NPR was singing about Jesus—even during Terry Gross’s Fresh Air!
How appropriate, for this week of Thanksgiving, that even NPR should sing praise to God. We may not always remember it, but Thanksgiving is supposed to be all about God, about giving Him our thanks and even our service:
Racism Down, Interracial Marriage Up
September 30, 2018
I was listening to a podcast, and one of my favorite political and cultural commentators, Jonah Goldberg, happened to mention rates of interracial marriage as one possible measure of levels of racism in America over the years. I was curious; so I looked them up.
According to the Pew Research Center, between 1980 and 2017, intermarriage rates roughly tripled:
Share of black Americans marrying someone of a different race or ethnicity in 1980 — 5%
In 2015 — 18%
Share of white Americans marrying someone of a different race or ethnicity in 1980 — 4%
In 2015 — 11%
Out: ‘I want to know the truth.’ In: ‘I stand with…’
September 28, 2018
(Party in power nominates Mr. B.)
Opposition-party senators: I will oppose this nomination with everything I’ve got.
Things You Hear on NPR: Kavanaugh Guilty until Proven Innocent
September 25, 2018
Well, this is just embarrassing. NPR this morning had Kavanaugh supporter Sara Fagen on, but the “interviewer” was quick to respond to everything the guest said with “Although,” followed by various tendentious arguments for the Democrats’ narrative. This isn’t an interview; it’s a debate.
Penultimately, the NPR interviewer made this brazen argument:
Forced Redistribution Majority of Federal Spending, Deficit
August 14, 2018
As you listen to commentators talking about “excessive” military spending and the federal budget deficit, this is your friendly periodic reminder that all U. S. military spending amounts to only 16% of federal spending, while forced redistribution represents 59% of federal spending. In dollar terms, forced redistribution is now the majority of what the federal government does; the federal government is literally a huge forced-redistribution operation with a smaller national-defense side project.
Don’t take my word for it; these numbers are according to the CBPP, which even the left agrees is of the left.
NPR this morning, “reporting” on immigration policy (getting less subtle in its advocacy for one side and its chosen narrative):
[NPR’s Steve] INSKEEP: So for that symbolic prosecution, they’ve been diverting from drug cases. I get that. But I’m remembering when Jeff Sessions announced this policy. He didn’t say to prosecutors across the country, abandon drug prosecutions. He said prosecute everybody. And if you need more resources, let us know. Have prosecutors been getting more resources to handle these border-crossing cases?
Enjoyment and Contemplation 