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Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on February 05, 2016 31 Comments
In his last year in office, Obama promised to be more bold (reckless?) in pushing his agenda, and one thing that has long irritated him about our great country is our consumption of oil. To address this pet peeve of his, Obama has released a budget in which he proposes a $10 per barrel tax hike on oil; the money, he says, will go to boost the failed "green" energy economy for which he's long pined.  Never mind his embarrassing and costly past plans to boost the green energy sector. The Hill reports:
President Obama will propose a $10-per-barrel fee on oil production to fund a new green transportation plan, the White House announced Thursday.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 31, 2016 13 Comments
Despite the success of Mayor Rudi Giuliani's quality-of-life laws, the smart set on New York’s City Council is considering options to ease enforcement of these offenses in the name of "diversity". I would like to offer New Yorkers a glimpse of their future by showing them what is now happening in San Francisco. The Bay Area metropolis hasn't had New York's experience of sensible leadership (albeit for only a brief time); therefore, it is about a decade ahead, in terms of enjoying the consequences of implementing diversity policies instead of those focusing on public health. I foresee that New Yorkers will soon be treated to fabulous, new facilities . . . like open-air urinals:
The first open-air public urinal in San Francisco has been unveiled in the city's Delores Park. The concrete circular urinal was opened in the latest move to combat the destructive scourge of public urination in the city.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 26, 2016 12 Comments
A subcommittee of Portland Community College's Cascade Campus Diversity Council has declared April 2016 Whiteness History Month. They hope to, "inspire innovative and practical solutions to community issues and social problems that stem from racism." According to Oregon Live, Whiteness History Month is the brainchild of PCC faculty and staff. Different from other heritage months, Whiteness History Month is not a celebration though. It's all about social constructs, racism, and multiculturalism. Or something:
The Project seeks to challenge the master narrative of race and racism through an exploration of the social construction of whiteness. Challenging the master narrative of traditional curriculum is a strategy within higher education that promotes multicultural education and equity.
The event's Statement of Purpose could've been penned by Rachel Dolezal. "Whiteness is a state of consciousness," and not about the color of skin, they contend. Skin color? That's just plain ol' "white."

Posted by edgeofthesandbox on January 24, 2016 5 Comments
Warning: Spoilers I can't call myself an aficionado of action flicks, so I'm not sure where where 13 Hours falls within that genre.  I did find the movie intense, the lead parts were masterfully played and it offered plenty of food for thought. It might be red meat for the conservative base, but in terms of pure propaganda value, in terms of effect on those who don't study politics closely, 13 Hours falls short. The movie follows six veterans, now contractors, providing security for the CIA outpost in war-torn, terrorist-infested Libyan town of Benghazi.  On one hand we have bravery, camaraderie and leadership of men like Jack Silva and Tyrone Woods, played by John Krasinski and James Badge Dale respectively, and on the other --stupidity and indifference bordering on betrayal everywhere they turn.  The American team was abandoned by the key local allies, denied adequate resources by its own country and when they needed rescue, help was too slow to come -- you know the story.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 22, 2016 6 Comments
We've become accustomed to hearing from the increasingly shrill fringe left about the greedy evils of the top 1%.  However, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that Americans are a generous and charitable people . . . including the most wealthy among us. The Washington Examiner reports that of the world's charitable donations an entire third comes from America's top 1%.
Americans are a charitable group, in fact the most generous in the world, according to the new Almanac of American Philanthropy. In a first of its kind survey, the Almanac found that Americans out-donate Britain and Canada two-to-one and nations like Italy and Germany 20-to-one. What's more, more than half of every single income class except those earning less than $25,000 donate to charity. The much maligned top 1 percent in the U.S. economy fork over one third of all donations made. Even in death.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 18, 2016 10 Comments
Of everything Dr. King said or wrote, this is easily my favorite. Scarcely does there arise a situation where Love's message does not apply. Particularly in a time -- during a year, of heightened contentiousness and rank discourse, Dr. King's words are exceedingly salient. Writing from jail in Birmingham, Alabama, King wrote:
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."
Though we gravitate towards rhetoric that holds two versions of America (an idea that is most certainly true), also true is that our destiny as a country is bound to that of the other.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 15, 2016 27 Comments
For some reason, I thought "folk singers" went out with lava lamps, tie-dye, and patchouli, and though I know folk music has a long and proud tradition, I just can't shake the image of doped-out '60s hippies singing about peace at SDS and Weather Underground rallies . . . where domestic terrorism was often on the list of things to do. As it turns out, though, folk singing is alive and well; indeed, an Oregon folk singer is heading to Syria with the hopes of serenading ISIS into peaceful submission. It sounds like an Onion story, but Fox News reports:
James Twyman, of Portland, Ore., told FoxNews.com he feels a "calling" and believes he can soften the hearts of the Islamist army known for beheading Westerners, throwing gays off of buildings and summarily executing innocent women and children.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 15, 2016 2 Comments
I'm not sure who thought "al Jazeera America" would be a good idea in the first place, but as many of us predicted, the network which began in 2013 just didn't catch on. In a sense it was doomed from the start because it began when its media group—al Jazeera Media Group owned by the Qatari government—bought Al Gore's embarrassingly unsuccessful Current TV.  Al Jazeera America also suffered a decided lack of enthusiasm in the American market. The ratings problem was so marked that when al Jazeera America managed to twice beat out MSNBC for two daytime hours, it was noteworthy and quite remarkable given how abysmal MSNBC's own numbers are.  As late as November of last year, al Jazeera was reorganizing and desirous of changing the network's image. Variety reported at the time:
The new chief of Al Jazeera America says the early-stage cable-news network is moving forward after a rocky launch that left the staff demoralized and prompted speculation that the Qatar-backed outlet might abandon its efforts to plant a flag in the United States. “There is a clear picture of where we are going to go,” said Al Anstey, who was named chief executive of the cable network in May. After supervising the operations of Al Jazeera English, Anstey replaced Ehab Al Shihabi, whose tenure overseeing the network was marked by the departures of some senior executives and a $15 million lawsuit from a former employee alleging that a senior executive was hostile to women and made remarks that could be construed as anti-Semitic.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 12, 2016 11 Comments
Legendary singer and cultural artist David Bowie has passed away at the age of 69, after losing an 18-month private battle with cancer.
The artist's hits include Let's Dance, Changes, Space Oddity, Starman, Modern Love, Heroes, Under Pressure, Rebel Rebel and Life on Mars. He was also well known for creating his flamboyant alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The singer, who had been living in New York in recent years, released his latest album Blackstar only last Friday, his birthday. The album has been well received by critics and was intended as a "parting gift" to the world, according to long-time friend and producer Tony Visconti.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 09, 2016 23 Comments
Reading the accounts from Cologne about the throngs of Arab men sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year's Eve, my first thought went to Lara Logan who suffered a similar fate in Egypt during the "Arab Spring." Lara is continuing to suffer from the unspeakable abuse she endured and was again hospitalized early in 2015.  My second thought went to the Second Amendment. As the evil that was perpetrated on over a hundred women (in Cologne alone) sinks in, the governments in Germany and throughout the western world—reports of similar attacks in Finland are emerging—are feeling more pressure than ever to address the refugee crisis and their own policies. Der Spiegel has published a lengthy and thoughtful article entitled "Chaos and Violence: How New Year's Eve in Cologne Changed Germany."
For some, the events finally bring to light what they have always been saying: that too many foreigners in the country bring too many problems along with them. For the others, that which happened is what they have been afraid of from the very beginning: that ugly images of ugly behavior by migrants would endanger what has been a generally positive mood in Germany with respect to the refugees.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 08, 2016 18 Comments
Yesterday, a man whose name has not yet been released attempted to slaughter a Philadelphia police officer because the police, he believes, uphold laws that are not consistent with the Koran.  He also reportedly told Philadelphia police officers that he has pledged his allegiance to ISIS. ABCNews reports:
A 30-year-old man accused of firing at least 11 times at a Philadelphia police officer had pledged allegiance to ISIS, police said today. The gunman, now in custody, "confessed to committing this cowardly act in the name of Islam," Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said during a news conference. "According to him, he believed that the police defend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran." Philadelphia Police Captain James Clark said the suspect, who's name was not released at the news conference, "stated that he pledges his allegiance to Islamic State, he follows Allah and that is the reason he was called upon to do this."

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on January 07, 2016 14 Comments
Employees at Los Angeles' La Brea Tar Pits arrived Monday morning to find three signs hung on an outdoor display of elephants. The elephants stand in and around one of the museum's tar pits that have seeped natural asphalt for tens of thousands of years. The La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is an active excavation site where archeologists have found and continue to find countless fossils dating back to the Pleistocene epoch, or the earth's last ice age. A 'hello my name is JEB' tag hangs from the tusks of an elephant partially immersed in tar as a visibly worried baby elephant draped with 'Rubio 2016' watches on the perimeter. Another elephant labeled 'establishment GOP' observes the scene nearby. The scene is rich with anti-establishment overtones. Whether one agrees with the artist or not, it was a clever move.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 05, 2016 30 Comments
Turns out that the must-see movie of 2015 wasn't Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but The Big Short! The movie focuses on four finance professionals and 2 amateurs who predict the housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s, and use arcane rules and special deals to punish the big banks for their greed while making a hefty profit for themselves. I must admit, I was skeptical about how much I was going to enjoy the movie when my husband suggested seeing it this weekend. I detest preachy films that bash capitalism and deride businessmen as greedy.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 01, 2016 8 Comments
Back in April, the Ted Cruz campaign had a fundraiser in which one could win an afternoon "shooting with Ted," so on the one hand, it's not surprising that when a "Netflix and chill" fundraiser went out people believed it. In other ways, however, because of the meaning of that phrase; it is surprising . . . simply because the Cruz campaign has been pretty savvy thus far about not making such cultural and social media faux pas. https://twitter.com/A_Garcia1990/status/681595388718133248/photo/1 And they didn't this time--the entire thing turned out to be a Photoshopped hoax.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 27, 2015 17 Comments
The Oxford University student behind the demand to remove Cecil Rhodes' name from the Rhodes Scholarship now has another demand -- ban the French flag on campuses. The student, Ntokozo Qwabe, has a history of activism in demanding the removal of "offensive" materials.  His first project was the "Rhodes Must Fall" campaign demanding the removal of a statute of Cecil Rhodes; in an ironic twist, it turned out that he attended Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship which he apparently does not intend on repaying. The Telegraph reports on the new demand to ban the French flag:
The law graduate behind a controversial campaign to remove a statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes from Oxford University’s Oriel College has turned his attention to the French flag, saying he’d support its ban on all university campuses.
Ntokozo Qwabe, co-founder of Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford, says France has committed acts of terror and refused to concede that Isis is worse than the French state.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 24, 2015 2 Comments
The good folks at MRCTV have a new college campus video out that is cringe-worthy to the max. Dan Joseph, the MRCTV reporter behind the video writes:
Last week, I presented some college students with a petition urging radio stations to stop playing the holiday classic "White Christmas" because the song only focuses on "White" Christmases. This clearly makes it racially insensitive, since it completely ignores Christmases of other colors. Students were all too willing to check their privilege and take a stand against Bing Crosby's racially charged micro-aggression. Just watch.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 22, 2015 32 Comments
The 9/11 terror attack changed the way Americans think about and law enforcement / the feds treat hijacked airlines, and San Bernardino and Paris are changing the way that Americans think about "active shooter" situations in the gun-free zones in which they tend to occur. Previously, office workers were taught to hunker down and hide (under a desk, for example) if they could not get away from the building.  This is a bad plan.  Now, however, "active shooter training" for office workers does not recommend hiding, which was often in plain sight; instead, the recommendation is to fight back—with books and other objects that can be used to "distract" a terrorist or assailant. The Washington Post reports:
Spooked by a year of high-profile rampages, hundreds of companies and organizations like NeighborWorks are racing to train their workers how to react to a shooter in their workplaces. And after decades of telling employees to lock down and shelter in place, they are teaching them to fight back if evacuating is not an option. The idea: Work as a team to disrupt and confuse shooters, opening up a split second to take them down.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 20, 2015 14 Comments
One of my happiest birthday memories was seeing the original "Star Wars" in 1977, when I turned 15. I fell in love with science fiction that day. So when my son, who is a big fan of both the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, turned 14 this month, my birthday gift to him was tickets for the earliest showing I could obtain for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The movie was the perfect present, as the stories behind the film and its making involve the struggles of one generation attempting to pass the torch of its values and ideals to the next. And while I didn't experience the same "high" after seeing The Force Awakens as I did with A New Hope, in many ways it was nearly as satisfying. First, a small clip for those few of you who haven't been exposed to the recent spate of "Star Wars" advertising:
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