Terry Meiners .com

"Celebrities...is there anything they don't know?"  ~~ Homer Simpson

Slavery Reparations
by Fred Reed (Washington Times)
=====================

On the Web I find that Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Afro-American Studies at Harvard, is demanding that whites pay reparations to blacks.

It's because of slavery, see. He is joined in this endeavor by a gaggle of other professional blacks. I guess he'll send me a bill. Huh? I feel like saying, let me get this straight, Hank. I'm slow. Be patient. You want free money because of slavery, right? I don't blame you. I'd like free money too.

Tell you what. I believe in justice. I'll give you a million dollars for every slave I own, and another million for every year you were a slave. Fair enough?  But tell me, how many slaves do you suppose I have? In round numbers, I mean. Say to the nearest dozen. And how long were you a slave?

Oh. You never were?

In other words, I owe you reparations for something that I didn't do and didn't happen to you. That makes sense. Like lug nuts on a birthday cake.

Personally, I think you owe me reparations for things you didn't do and never happened to me. I've never been coated in Dutch chocolate and thrown from the Eiffel Tower. I'll bet you've never done it to anyone.  I want reparations. Kinda silly, isn't it?

But if we're going to talk about reparations, that's a street that runs in two directions. You want money from me for what some other whites did to some other blacks in another century. Did blacks ever own and sell slaves?

Gotcha!

How about you guys paying whites reparations for current expenses caused by blacks? Not long ago blacks burned down half of Los Angeles, a city in my country. Cities are expensive, Hank. Build one sometime and you'll see what I mean. Whites had to pay taxes to repair Los Angeles for you.  You can send me a check.

Now, yes, I know you burned LA because you didn't like the verdict in the trial of those police officers. Well, I didn't like the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial. But I didn't burn my house and loot Korean grocery stores.

Over the years blacks have burned a lot of American cities: Newark, Detroit, Miami, LA, on and on. Now add in the fantastic cost over the years of welfare in all its forms, of large police forces and jails and security systems in department stores.

I can't live in the capital city of my own country because of crime committed by blacks. Washington, DC is almost 100% black. It has the highest murder rate of any American city of any size. Highest rate of rape, robbery, burglary, battery, carjacking, dope-dealing. Highest everything. I'd like to take my kids there to see our national heritage, but I'm afraid to. DC has the strictest gun laws as well, so I am not able to protect myself or my family.

Toss in the cultural cost of lowering standards in hiring and education for the benefit of blacks. It's the 'dumbing down' of America. A rising tide raises all boats; a falling tide lowers all boats of all colors.  Now, I'd view things differently if you said, "Fred, blacks can't get anywhere in a modern country without education. We know that. We need better schools, smarter teachers, harder courses, books with smaller pictures and bigger words. Can you help us"?  I'd say, "Hallelujah! Hoo-ahh! Not just yes, but hell yes. Let's sell an aircraft carrier and get these folks some real schools and get them into the economic mainstream.  I'd say it partly because it would be the right thing to do, and partly, because I'd like see black people add to the tax base, not endlessly devour its resources. The current custodial state is expensive. I'd just love for blacks to study and learn to compete and stop burning places. But is it going to happen?

You may not believe it, but I, and most whites, don't like seeing blacks as miserable and screwed up as they are. I spend a fair amount of time in the projects. Those places are ugly. It's no fun watching perfectly good kids turn into semiliterate dope dealers who barely speak English and murder one another over nothing. It's just plain not right. But, Hank, what am I supposed to do about it? I can't do your children's homework. At some point, people have to do things for themselves, or they don't get done. Maybe it's time.

I'll tell you what I see out in the world, Hank. I think blacks are too accustomed to getting anything they want by just demanding it. True, it has worked for over half a century. Get a few hundred people in the street, threaten to loot and burn, holler about slavery, and the Great White Cash Spigot turns on. Thing is, whites don't much buy it any longer. Most
recognize that what once was a civil-rights movement has become a shakedown game; Jesse Jackson, The Reverend Al Sharpton, etc., all Con men.  Period. Few white people still feel responsible for the failings and inadequacies of blacks. Political correctness keeps the lid on-- but everyone knows the score. Which scares me, Hank.

On one hand, blacks hate whites and incline toward looting and burning. (The whites you hate are the ones who marched or supported the civil-rights movement. Ever think about that?)

On the other hand, whites quietly grow wearier and wearier of it. Not good.

On the third hand (allow me three hands, for rhetorical convenience), blacks keep demanding things of whites, as if we have an unending supply of money. As I write, you demand reparations for slavery in the 19th Century. Blacks in Tulsa, Oklahoma want money for a race riot that took place in the 1920's.  No one involved in that riot is still alive today.  Other blacks reject the Declaration of Independence, blacks in New York hint broadly at burning and looting over a trial, yet more demand the elimination of the Confederate flag in South Carolina. It's been there for a century and a half. Is it a symbol of hatred or, more likely an historical thing. Through the federal equal-opportunity apparatus -- which means blacks - wants to sue Silicon Valley for not hiring nonexistent black computer engineers. That's a lot of demanding for one month, Hank. What happens if whites ever say, "No"?

Now, how about you? You've got a cushy job up there at Harvard, and you can hoot and holler about what swine and bandits whites are. I guess it's lots of fun, and you get a salary for it. But don't you think you might do blacks more good if you told them to complain less and study more? For example, if you want blacks to work in Silicon Gulch, the best approach might be to find some really smart black guys, and get them to study digital design, not Black Studies. That's how everybody else does it. It works.

Then blacks wouldn't feel left out, and racial tension would decline. Sound like a plan?

Just out of curiosity, how many hours a week do professors of Afro-American Studies spend in the projects, encouraging poor black kids to study REAL subjects, Hank?

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ON THE MID-EAST CONFLICT BY DENNIS MILLER
(you know the Internet ...take the author's name with a grain of salt but read the text just the same)

A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need.

Don't thank me. I'm a giver.

Here we go: The Palestinians want their own country.

There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word.

Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention.

Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."

So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" anymore to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being videotaped.

Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs From The Same General Area Who Are In Deep Denial About Never Being Able To Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death."

I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew Haters."

Okay, so the Adjacent Jew Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing.

No, they don't.

They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you will need traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course that's where the real fun is--but mostly they want Israel.

Why?

For one thing, trying to destroy Israel--or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it--for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally awkward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something. It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast.

Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews.

Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.

Really? Wow, what neat news.

Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea?

Oh, that? We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers.

Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs.

I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not.

Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab state into the sea?

Nonsense.

Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents?

Impossible.

Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children?

Disgusting.

No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations coming up against Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of super models who've just had their drugs taken away.

However, in any big picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already lost some. After September 11 our president told the world and us he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them.

Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint.

If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan.

(allegedly written by Dennis Miller)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PEGGY NOONAN

Why We Talk About Reagan

The media can't see the truth about a great president.

BY PEGGY NOONAN

A small band of former aides and friends of Ronald Reagan were all over TV this week talking about the former president on his 91st birthday. Our memories and reflections were treated with thoughtfulness and respect by the media. It wasn't always this way but I'm glad it is now, and I think there are reasons for it.
Journalists feel an honest compassion for Mr. Reagan's condition--everyone is saddened by the thought that this great man who was once so much a part of our lives no longer knows he was great, no longer remembers us. It's big enough to be called tragic: this towering figure so reduced by illness. Part of it too is a growing appreciation of Nancy Reagan, who is doing now what she did for 50 years, protecting him, protecting his memory and his privacy. Only now she does it 24-7 at the age of 78, and without the help and comfort of the best friend of her life: him. She told me some months ago how to this day she'll think of something and want to say, "Honey, remember the time . . ." Or something will happen and she'll want to ask him what he thinks. And of course she can't.

It is also true--I am sorry to be cynical, but I have worked in media, have enjoyed and even shared its cynicism--that the hungry maw of every network and cable news show is hoping, on the day the former president leaves us, to get the Get. To get Mrs. Reagan on the air, or the former president's children, or his associates in history. The more sympathetic they are now, the better the chance they'll get the Big Get. And this is understandable. It's what news people want to do: Get the story.
Whatever the reasons, it's good to see Mr. Reagan's memory held high by those who admire and understand him, and have the arguments for his greatness heard with respect in the media.

But let me tell you why we make those arguments as often as we can. When I talk about Mr. Reagan, media people often preface my remarks, or close them, with words like this: "You adore him." Or, "You of course have great affection for him and so it's your view that . . ."

These are not unfriendly words, but they're a warning to the viewer: Take what you hear with a grain of salt. Needless to say the grain-of-salt warning doesn't come when the subject is, say, JFK or FDR or Martin Luther King, all of whom had friends, supporters and biographers who have spent decades advancing their causes with affection and respect.

And that's why those of us who talk about Mr. Reagan talk about Mr. Reagan, why we stick to the subject. After he leaves us the media may well conclude that they have no particular reason to listen politely when we speak of him. So we do it now.

And we do it because history is watching. Because young people are coming up. Because new generations rise and look at the past and think: Who was great, who was worthy of emulation, who can I learn from? Children whose parents have not for whatever reason led them or nurtured them sufficiently sometimes feel a particular need to look at the historical past and think: Who can I learn from there as I try to put together a good life?

Who indeed. There is something the past few days I've found difficult to communicate on TV, in part because it sounds pretentious in the chatty atmosphere of the newsnook, but it's at the heart of what I'm trying to say. Laurens van der Post, in a memoir of his relationship with Carl Jung, said that we all forget the obvious: "We live not only our own lives but, whether we know it or not, also the life of our time." We add to that larger life or detract; we give or withhold, we lead or shrink back, we put ourselves on the line for the truth or we ignore the summons, we meet the great challenge of our age or we retreat to our gardens. It is not bad to tend your garden, and is in fact necessary; you can find wholeness, solace and truth there too. But to tend it and also step forward into history, to step into the life of your age, to step onto history's stage and seek to take part constructively, to try to make your era better--that is a very great thing. And that is what Mr. Reagan did, and successfully. He helped his world.

Ronald Reagan's old foes, the political and ideological left, retain a certain control of the words and ways by which stories are told. They run the academy, the media; they control many of the means by which the young--that nice, strong 20-year-old boy walking down the street, that thoughtful girl making some money by yanking the levers of the coffee machine at Starbucks--will receive and understand history.
But the academy and the media may not in time tell Mr. Reagan's story straight; and if they do not tell the truth it will be for the simple reason that they cannot see it. They have been trained in a point of view. It's hard to break out of your training.

Those of us who lived in and feel we understood the age of Ronald Reagan have a great responsibility: to explain and tell and communicate who he was and what he did and how he did it and why. Where he came from and what it meant that he came from there. What it meant, for instance, that he came from the political left, was trained in it, and then left it--for serious reasons, reasons as serious as life gets. And: what it cost him to stand where he stood. That is always one of the great questions of history, of the story of a political or cultural figure--"What did it cost him to stand where he stood?" You learn a lot when you learn the cost.

If we don't tell the young they'll never know.

That is why we don't let the subject pass. It's too rich with meaning. To speak of Mr. Reagan honestly, to speak of his fabled life and his flaws, is to make a contribution to the young, who 10 and 20 and 40 years from now will be running history, and who will need lives on which to pattern their own, lives from which to draw strength.

The young could do worse. The young often have.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal. Her new book, "When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan," is just out from Viking Penguin. Her column appears Fridays.


Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.




HYPOCRITE'S OATH:
I swear an oath on my honor as a hypocrite that...
I will cuss cows but eat beef, blast miners but wear jewelry and drive a car
but condemn oil companies.
I don't want trees cut for any purpose other than to provide the lumber for
my next house. As a Hollywood celebrity I assert my God given right to sire
at least four children by three different wives and then protest about
overpopulation in the world.

I will put fish first by saving the sucker and salmon, but not the farmers
and ranchers who feed me. I demand that politicians and federal judges in
Washington save all endangered species, except the small business man. I
feel government is imminently qualified to micro- manage nature, after all,
look what a smashing job they've done with the IRS, EPA, USDA, FBI, BLM and
assorted other alphabet agencies.

As a self-righteous hypocrite it is my duty to celebrate Earth Day with
barbecues and parades and by leaving tons of trash behind. I demand that
feedlots and farms stop polluting our ground water. That privilege should
be preserved for me every time I flush the contents of my toilet into a
septic tank or the ocean.

I want to relocate grizzly bears and wolves to the West but not in my
big-city backyard. After all, people live here! I give my permission for
mountains lions to eat lambs but if a lion eats my dog or cat I demand the
abominable beast be shot on sight.

I will cuss oil companies on talk radio and stand in the way of their
drilling more wells while sitting in my gas guzzling SUV with the engine
running. I will write letters to the editor on my computer castigating
utility companies for not providing enough electricity. At the same time I
will send money to green groups who want to tear down hydroelectric dams and
stand in the way of any new power producing projects.

I avow at the next cocktail party I attend while smoking a cigarette and
sipping a martini that I will sue the tobacco companies for causing my lung
cancer.

Although I have never personally milked a cow or grown vegetables in a
garden I demand to have a say on how farmers and ranchers do it. As a
pompous hypocrite I demand that water, herbicides, and pesticides be taken
away from farmers immediately, but I don't want it to affect the price,
quantity or quality of the food I buy in the store. It is my strongly held
conviction that we should ban all pesticides, except the can of bug spray I
use to kill ants and other unwanted bugs in my home.

As a mealy-mouthed hypocrite I vow to help stop global warming by watching
the Discovery Channel on my giant sized television in my air-conditioned
house.

I assert that cattle pooping on our nation's grasslands is a national
disgrace while fertilizing my urban lawn with steer manure and urea is
simply good ecology. I will complain about fertilizer runoff from farms but
not from golf courses because I happen to be a golfer.

I will hound hunters in the woods because they use guns despite the fact
that hunting groups have increased habitat and wildlife numbers. I demand
that the government end all timber cutting or recovery in our national
forests but I'll cry like a singed coyote if the feds allow wildfires to
burn near my house.

As a card-carrying hypocrite I disavow the use of fur, leather, wool and all
animal by-products, except the ones used in medicine that might save my
life. I demand labels be placed on all food products but not on a rock
album that endorses killing cops.
Finally, as an arrogant and self-serving hypocrite I firmly believe that
rural folks have done a terrible job of taking care of the countryside and
they must do a better job because that's where I want to live or visit
someday when I can escape the pollution, crime, and insanity of the barren
big city in which I currently reside.


Dear friend,

This week I turn 29.

It's hard to believe. How time flies. January 22, 1973 seems
like so long ago. I'm the oldest in my family. It's a pretty
big family, but I'll explain that later.

If you're a boomer, you probably don't think much of my
generation -- Gen X. But that's because we're a threat to
you! My generation is changing the world! Just think of all
that has happened in the world these past 29 years...

The end of Vietnam. Watergate. Jimmy Carter. Actually, I don't
remember much from the 70s, since I was just entering elementary
school when Ronald Reagan became president.

I loved the 80s. That's when I grew up, but I had no idea just
how much the world was changing.

Then, the Berlin Wall fell. I'll never forget that day in
November. 1989. I was 16 and on top of the world. I can
remember my history teacher telling me that the world would
never be the same. He was right.

Then, something even more dramatic developed. The Internet. If
you want to understand me and my generation, then go online.
When I was in college, a few of my friends saw it coming. We
helped start a revolution online. And don't believe it when
they say the Internet bubble has burst. The only thing that
has burst is the old way of doing business.

Now, I'm working on my third business startup -- all before age
30. Not bad, eh? I got married three years ago, and we're
expecting our first child in three months. A new generation
begins...

Except for one problem.

You see, I wasn't actually born on January 22, 1973. In fact,
I wasn't born at all.

I never was given the chance to take even that first breath -
never mind then 381 million breaths that would have followed
over these 29 years.

Not a single breath.

That's because of something else that happened on January 22,
1973.

Seven justices made a decision that would dramatically affect
my life - and the lives of 40 million others who would never
take a breath.

That's my family. And it's growing every day. In fact, in the
next 24 hours the family of abortion victims will grow by about
as many people who died when the Trade Center buildings collapsed.

The cleanup from 9/11 continues. And so does the clean up
from 1/22/73.

And to think it was all based on a lie. Jane "Roe" of Roe v.
Wade was lied to. And so were you - if you believed even for
a moment that the mass of tissue wasn't a human life.

That mass of tissue was me!

My goal here isn't to make you feel guilty. Rather, think of
me - or what could have been me - the next time the topic of
abortion comes up.

Think of me graduating from high school and going to college.
Think of me getting married and having children. Think of me
celebrating my birthday with family and friends.

Think of me turning 29.


--Anonymous



IF PIGS COULD FLY...

By Paul Sperry
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com WASHINGTON –

Pigs, hogs, swine, porkers, barrows, trotters. When Americans aren't eating them – hot dogs, bologna, spareribs, pig's knuckles, ham, bacon, pork chops – they're adoring them on TV or the big screen. Hollywood has transformed the stinky, snorty critters into lovable pink-bellied icons known affectionately to all of us as "Porky Pig," "Arnold" or "Babe."

In short, Americans (with the exception of orthodox Jews) love pigs. But to Islamic fundamentalists, they are just stinky, snorty critters – the quintessence of uncleanliness. Indeed, Muslims are forbidden to eat pork by the Koran, their holy book. To knowingly eat pork is to commit an act of sin which could jeopardize their ascension to Paradise.

It's not just meat they have to be careful about eating. They also have to check that cheeses and yogurts – even cake frosting – don't contain "unclean" byproducts such as pork lard. When traveling on American jetliners, orthodox Muslims typically order vegetarian meals to avoid the chance encounter with one of Arnold Ziffel's relatives. On Arabic airliners, they ask for a "blessed" meat called halal. Such non-pork meat has been drained of blood during the slaughtering and butchering process.

The Koran forbids the consumption of animal blood (which makes pig's blood virtually radioactive, an observation our military might find useful, as I'll explain further on). So averse to pigs are Islamic fundamentalists, that even coming in contact with them – or any part of them, such as their hide – means defiling themselves. It's not a sin to touch, say, a pigskin football, but if they do, they are advised to wash their hands immediately.

Pig-fat products are on the list of items Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia has declared to be against the sharia, the ruling clerics' interpretation of Islamic law. So, you see, pigs are to Islamic terrorists – such as Osama bin Laden and his henchmen – what kryptonite is to Superman, or what garlic is to Dracula.

Take Mohamed Atta, for example. The suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers was so careful not to eat pork fat that he scraped the frosting from cakes. Here was a man more afraid of eating a hint of pork in a dessert than flying a jet full speed into a skyscraper. See where I'm going with this? Few in Washington want to admit it, but these Islamic fanatics have baited us into a holy war. And like it or not, we'll have to use their religion against them to win.

Psychological warfare U.S. forces should start by dropping leaflets over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, warning residents, in their native Persian tongue, that we've enlisted Afghani moles to contaminate their water supplies with pig's blood. The propaganda would also warn that American soldiers have greased their bullets with pork fat. We could tell them, while we're at it, that we've ordered special pigskin-lined fatigues for this mission.

At night, we could bombard bin Laden's camps with recordings of hog-snorting. If he and his fellow terrorists won't come out of their caves, send pen-loads of trotters in to nuzzle them. Can't find bin Laden? Force-feed Taliban clerics pork rinds until they give up his location.

If that doesn't work, air-lift pigs into their mosques. In the meantime, airlines could reupholster plane seats with pigskin, and cover cockpit yokes with the "unclean" hide to repel future Islamic hijackers. For insurance, serve passengers bacon bits instead of peanuts.

If their religion is driving them to hate Americans, and rewarding them to kill our people, then it's hardly indecent to use their faith against them to protect us. Hit them where it hurts. They hit us where it hurts – and they're already planning to do it again.

They're not afraid of death. However, they are afraid of pigs. Send in the porkers, lock them out of Paradise, and watch them surrender. Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.





WHAT IS AN AMERICAN?

A primer.

By Peter Ferrara, an associate professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law.
September 25, 2001 9:20 a.m.



You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper there an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So I just thought I would write to let them know what an American is, so they would know when they found one.

An American is English…or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them choose.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.

An American does not have to obey the mad ravings of ignorant, ungodly cruel, old men. American men will not be fooled into giving up their lives to kill innocent people, so that these foolish old men may hold on to power. American women are free to show their beautiful faces to the world, as each of them choose.

An American is free to criticize his government's officials when they are wrong, in his or her own opinion. Then he is free to replace them, by majority vote.

Americans welcome people from all lands, all cultures, all religions, because they are not afraid. They are not afraid that their history, their religion, their beliefs, will be overrun, or forgotten. That is because they know they are free to hold to their religion, their beliefs, their history, as each of them choose.

And just as Americans welcome all, they enjoy the best that everyone has to bring, from all over the world. The best science, the best technology, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes.

Americans welcome the best, but they also welcome the least. The nation symbol of America welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed.

These in fact are the people who built America. Many of them were working in the twin towers on the morning of September 11, earning a better life for their families.

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo and Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world.

But in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

So look around you. You may find more Americans in your land than you thought were there. One day they will rise up and overthrow the old, ignorant, tired tyrants that trouble too many lands. Then those lands too will join the community of free and prosperous nations.

And America will welcome them.




LIBERAL NEWS BIAS? GET REAL, YOU BABY-STARVING, GRANDMA-KILLING, HATEMONGER CONSERVATIVE SOCIAL SECURITY SQUASHING REPUBLICAN SCUMBAG!

GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

December 3, 2001, 540pm

from nationalreview.com


If CBS News were a prison instead of a journalistic enterprise, three-quarters of the producers and 100 percent of the vice presidents would be Dan's bitches,' Goldberg declares on Page 10."

That's an excerpt from Matt Drudge's account of a new book on liberal media bias. What's shocking is that even though the author in question is named Goldberg; uses sexually loaded prison humor; and makes a conservative argument about the lefty media… I didn't write the book. And neither did anyone in my family.

I don't mean that to sound pompous — it's just that pointing out that there aren't many conservative journalists named Goldberg (or Greenberg, or Bernstein, or Lipshitz, etc.) denouncing the left-wing media is like saying very few active-duty Marines throw lavish Oscar parties with delightfully provocative endive crudités.

Anyway, Bernard Goldberg's book sounds great. A multiple-Emmy winner at CBS News, Bernard Goldberg saw firsthand the liberal bias at Dan Rather's cell-block harem, er, "news enterprise." I haven't read it yet, but I pretty much know what it's going to say. In fact, I would know the substance of his criticism even if Drudge and Howard Kurtz hadn't summarized it already.

Again, I don't want that to sound pompous either. The fact is everybody knows that Dan Rather is an egomaniacal liberal. Everybody knows that the major news networks lean to the left. Everybody knows that Grape Nuts tastes like kitty litter. Everybody knows that mainstream journalists see conservatives as "biased," "ideological," or "agenda-driven" — yet would argue that Dan Rather reading a press release from the Children's Defense Fund is simply hard-hitting, fact-based journalism in the tradition of Edward R. Murrow.

In fact, there are only two identifiable groups who do not think — rather, know — that the mainstream press leans liberal: working members of the mainstream press, and hardcore, Lenin-goateed, Mother Jones-reading left-wingers.

Let's take the second group first, since they're the easiest to dismiss. The priesthood of editors, media critics, and current and future Columbia Journalism School professors often defend themselves by pointing to left-wing critics who denounce the "conservative, corporate control of the media," or some similar prattle. They say, "See. there are smart lefties who say we're too conservative."

This, needless to say, is an unpersuasive argument for a host of reasons. But let's just stick to the logic for a moment. If I say you are ugly, you do not refute my assertion by pointing to someone uglier. Alec Baldwin isn't any less stoopid simply by virtue of the fact that he can point to someone who eats lead paint-chips like they were Doritos and say, "But Cletus thinks I'm really smart."

Look, it's hardly surprising that Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Susan Sontag, Stanley Fish, and the rest of that crowd think the liberal media is too conservative. After all, they think avowed liberals are too conservative. If you consider Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Doris Kearns Goodwin, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The New Republic, or any other liberal icons to be too conservative (or racist, misogynist, whatever), why wouldn't you think the journalists who worship these people to be too conservative too?

Which brings us to the worshippers themselves.

The rank-and-file journalists at CBS, the New York Times, etc., are part of large bureaucratic institutions with powerful institutional cultures. Such cultures are extremely intolerant and dismissive of outside criticism (sadly, they are even harsher on internal dissent, which is why Bernie Goldberg is being called a "traitor" — and will be called far worse before this is all over — by his old colleagues). It's no wonder that career-minded professionals drink the Kool-Aid (or to keep the prison motif going, the toilet-water-chilled pruno).

But groupthink is just one of the many plausible explanations for liberal media bias. People who want to become journalists have a certain arrogant desire to "fix" the world, which is disproportionately a liberal impulse. The rise of the modern welfare state and the Cold War made the government the driving engine for almost all big news. When the government — in one form or another — is your biggest source of copy, you're going to inflate the importance of that source. You're also going to assume that whenever the government does "something" (what liberals do) it equals progress, and that whenever it undoes something (what conservatives and libertarians do) it's a giant step backward. ("The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor," declared the unbiased Dan Rather during the Gingrich years.)

And of course, the wordy disciplines of academia — art, history, political science, English, and its dumb-blonde kid sister "communications" — carry all 31 flavors of lefty, anti-American buffoonery. And, needless to say, the students who are drawn to (let alone excel in) these disciplines tend to think that corporations are evil, that government is good, and that a herd of think-alike liberals is "diverse" so long as it comes in different colors.

There are other reasons too. But the simple fact is that everyone knows the big-league media leans to the left. Even liberals know it. A Lou Harris poll revealed that 70 percent of self-described liberals think the media tilts to the left. Meanwhile, a Freedom Forum survey found that 89 percent of journalists voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. Their professional heroes — Cronkite, Daniel Schorr, A. J. Liebling, and, most damning, I. F. Stone (see this for more on Izzy) — are uniformly liberal or left-wing.

If they'd admit they have a problem and move on, lots of conservatives would just give up on the topic. It's the infuriating denial that bugs many of us. It's like the friend who swears he didn't drink your last beer. You don't care about the beer, but you just can't stand him not admitting it. (You took my beer! Say it!! Say it!!!) By denying the obvious, so many pompous elite journalists drive us batty by acting as if we're imagining things.

But while the vast, vast majority of journalists are liberals, they are hardly all liberal — or uniformly biased — in the same way. Indeed, my biggest problem with conservative media criticism is the common suggestion that liberal bias is the product of a giant conspiracy. That may sound great in a conservative direct-mail fund-raising letter, but conspiracies require conscious, deliberate, highly organized effort and deception — which is why conspiracies of all kinds are so rare.

If media bias is simply a conspiracy, then every single journalist who denies he's got a liberal bias is necessarily a blatant, deliberate liar. Some of them must be, of course, but I think conservatives should be generous enough to accommodate the possibility that a sizable number of the deniers are telling the truth as they see it. Now, that does hold open the possibility — nay, likelihood — that some of these people are in a state of profound denial so severe it is indistinguishable from cranial-anal impaction, or are simply morons.

Dan Rather insists that he's not a liberal. He swears media bias is "one of the great political myths." He told the L.A. Times in 1992, "I walk out every day trying to have a big 'I' for independence stamped right in the middle of my forehead. I try to play no favorites, pull no punches."

Now, I don't know if he's sincere or if he's a liar or if that "I" stands for idiot; all three are possible. (You can probably tell that I take it as an objective, iron-clad, indisputable fact that Dan Rather is a biased news anchor — as do all people who've ever spent two seconds studying the issue. Go buy Bernard Goldberg's book, if you want to bone up on the topic.)

But if we operate on the assumption that Rather and his comrades know they are biased liberals and are flatly lying when they deny it — we write off any chance of ever making them see the light. They will simply become more defensive, more strident, and less open to criticism.

Of course, that would be fine, save for the simple fact that the Dan Rathers of the world run places like CBS (in fact, I have it on good authority that all of the vice presidents are Dan Rather's bitches). And I don't care how wonderful Fox News is, these other institutions are still important, because vast numbers of Americans respect and trust them. If all of the mechanics at Jiffy Lube franchises across America had a liberal bias, we could afford to ignore them or take our business elsewhere. But no newspaper will replace the New York Times as the "paper of record" for a very, very long time. Which is why we need more conservatives at the New York Times, and even at CBS. I myself would give anything for Andy Rooney's job, and if I got it, conservatism would be the better for it. Besides, I'd love to see Dan Rather try to make me his bitch. I'd wait in my office with a pillow sack full of soda cans and then I'd…

Sorry. I interrupt this long and rambling column to notify readers that I have been invited to become a regular CNN commentator, and I've gladly agreed. Which is why I hosted Crossfire last week and was a guest on CNN's Late Edition. I don't know what else they have in mind for me. In the meantime, if you have an ideological problem with that — and I've learned from the feedback I've gotten already that quite a few of you do — I welcome your views on the subject, but all I ask is that before you send "you're a sell out" criticisms, you read these two columns to understand where I come from on this argument: "Conservatism After Clinton" and "Stand and Fight". (Please note, however, that the reference to "F*cking Jew Bastard!" was a comment reportedly made by Hillary Clinton, and much discussed in the news at the time.)

We now return to the previously scheduled rant (already in progress):

…and then I'd say, "How you like them apples beeeeyatch?!?" as I made Gunga Dan fetch me some strawberry shortcake from the cafeteria…


SHOULD CITIES PAY FOR ARENAS?
By Adam M. Zaresky

Americans love sports. Watching the home team in any of the four major sports—baseball, football, basketball and hockey—march to victory in the World Series, Super Bowl, NBA Finals or Stanley Cup Finals arguably generates more excitement and local pride in a town than any other event. Fans love when the hometown boys win. But even when they don’t, fans stick by their teams. By and large, so do the cities these teams play in. In fact, cities with home teams are often willing to go to great lengths to ensure they stay home. And cities without home teams are often willing to dangle many carrots to entice teams to move. In either case, the most visible way cities do this is by building new stadiums and arenas.

Between 1987 and 1999, 55 stadiums and arenas were refurbished or built in the United States at a cost of more than $8.7 billion.1 This figure, however, includes only the direct costs involved in the construction or refurbishment of the facilities, not the indirect costs—such as money cities might spend on improving or adding to the infrastructure needed to support the facilities. Of the $8.7 billion in direct costs, about 57 percent—around $5 billion—was financed with taxpayer money. Since 1999, other stadiums have been constructed or are in the pipeline (see table below for some examples), much of the cost of which will also be supported with tax dollars. Between $14 billion and $16 billion is expected to be spent on these post-’99 stadiums and arenas, with somewhere between $9 billion and $11 billion of this amount coming from public coffers. The use of public funds to lure or keep teams begs several questions, the foremost of which is, “Are these good investments for cities?”

The short answer to this question is “No.” When studying this issue, almost all economists and development specialists (at least those who work independently and not for a chamber of commerce or similar organization) conclude that the rate of return a city or metropolitan area receives for its investment is generally below that of alternative projects. In addition, evidence suggests that cities and metro areas that have invested heavily in sports stadiums and arenas have, on average, experienced slower income growth than those that have not.

Why, then, would cities engage in such activities? This question is actually harder to answer than the former one because, more often than not, the reasons cited are not quantifiable. In other words, the reasons are not as easily measured as, say, costs, because they include many intangible variables, such as civic pride and political self-interest. Moreover, cities generally justify these decisions—and convince taxpayers of their virtue—with analyses that many economists consider suspect because the studies generally overlook some basic economic realities.


Not Always Built with Tax Dollars...

In 1862, William Cammeyer enclosed the Union Club Grounds in Brooklyn, N.Y., and began charging admission, making it the first recorded baseball “stadium” in the United States. The facility was quite attractive to the fledgling sport of baseball because it enabled the exclusion of non-paying spectators and impressed the up-and-coming players, for whom teams were beginning to compete. By the time the National Association was formed in 1871, owners of such enclosed ballparks had a distinct advantage in the competition for teams.

In many ways, not much has changed since then. Teams today are still attracted by modern facilities, and cities go out of their way to provide them. In other ways, though, much has changed. Nowadays, facilities are not usually owned privately by individuals, but, rather, publicly by a government agency. And even though public financing of stadiums is a more common practice today, cities did pony up for a few of the older, well-known stadiums in times past.

Some prime examples of government-owned stadiums from yesteryear are the Los Angeles Coliseum and Soldier Field, both of which are still in use today. Other famous venues, such as Fenway Park, Ebbets Field, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium and the original Comiskey Park, were all privately financed and owned. In fact, prior to World War II, of the 28 major league sports facilities that were built—for which data are available—only five were paid for in part or whole with taxpayer dollars.2 Since World War II, however, of the roughly 140 sports facilities that have been built or refurbished, only 14 did not use taxpayer dollars.


...But When They Are, Are They Worth It?

The dollars being invested in sports facilities are quite substantial considering the overall contribution the industry makes to the economy. In testimony before the U.S. Congress, economist Robert Baade said that Chicago’s professional sports industry—which includes five teams—accounted for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of Chicago’s 1995 personal income.3 Baade further commented that even when compared with the revenue of other industries, professional sports teams contribute small amounts to the economy. He noted, for example, that “the sales revenue of Fruit of the Loom exceed[ed] that for all of Major League Baseball (MLB), while the sales revenue of Sears [was] about thirty times larger than that of all MLB revenues.”

Still, cities are driven by the idea that playing host to professional sports teams builds civic pride and increases local tax receipts from the team-related sales and salaries. When it comes to salaries, however, economist Mark Rosentraub noted in a 1997 article that there is no U.S. county where professional sports accounts for more than 1 percent of the county’s private-sector payroll.

Although sports facilities certainly generate tax revenues from their sales, the pertinent question is whether these revenues are above and beyond what would have occurred in the region anyway. To address this question, city proposals to use taxpayer money to finance sports facilities are routinely accompanied by “economic impact studies.” These studies, which are often commissioned by franchise owners and conducted by an accounting firm or local chamber of commerce, generally use spurious economic techniques to demonstrate the number of new jobs and additional tax revenues that will be generated by the project. The assumptions that are made in these studies—such as how much of the newly generated income will stay in the region and how many “secondary” jobs will be created—often cannot be substantiated by economic theory.

Estimates of income that will be generated and, hence, spent in the region are often overstated. Most of the “big” money in sports goes to the owners and players, who may or may not spend the money in the hometown since many live in other cities. And because athletic careers are usually short-lived, much of the players’ income is invested. Moreover, league rules often require ticket revenues be shared with franchise owners in other cities as a way to subsidize teams in smaller markets. In the case of the National Football League, every visiting team leaves town with 34 percent of the gate receipts from each game.

On top of all this, the value of the subsidy a team receives when a city foots the bill for a new stadium or arena often shows up as a higher team resale price, which then ends up in the owner’s pocket. For example, Eli Jacobs bought the Baltimore Orioles for $70 million in 1989, just after the team had convinced the state of Maryland to build it a new $200 million ballpark from lottery revenues. The enormously popular Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992. The following year, Jacobs sold the Orioles for $173 million. The sale netted Jacobs an almost 150 percent return, with no money out-of-pocket for the new ballpark.4


And the Dollars Keep Turning Over

Economic impact studies also tend to focus on the increased tax revenues cities expect to receive in return for their investments. The studies, however, often gloss over, or outright ignore, that these facilities usually do not bring new revenues into a city or metropolitan area. Instead, the revenues raised are usually just substitutes for those that would have been raised by other activities. Any student of economics knows that households have budget constraints that are binding, which means that families have only so much money to spend, particularly on entertainment. If the family chooses to spend the money at the ballpark, for example, then those funds cannot be spent on other activities. Thus, no new revenues are actually being generated.

Public funds used for a stadium or arena can generate new revenues for a city only if one of the following situations occurs: 1) the funds generate new spending by people from outside the area who otherwise would not have come to town; 2) the funds cause area residents to spend money locally that would not have been spent there otherwise; or 3) the funds keep turning over locally, thereby “creating” new spending.

Very little evidence exists to suggest that sporting events are better at attracting tourism dollars to a city than other activities. More often than not, tourists who attend a baseball or hockey game, for example, are in town on business or are visiting family and would have spent the money on another activity if the sports outlet were not available.5

Economists Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist have examined the issue in depth and argued that, as a general rule, sports facilities attract neither tourists nor new industry. A good example, once again, is Oriole Park at Camden Yards. This ballpark is probably the most successful at attracting outsiders since it is only 40 miles from the nation’s capital, where there is no major league baseball team. About a third of the crowd at every game comes from outside the Baltimore area. Noll and Zimbalist point out that, “Even so, the net gain to Baltimore’s economy in terms of new jobs and incremental tax revenues is only about $3 million a year—not much of a return on a $200 million investment.”6

The claim that sporting facilities cause residents to spend more money in town than they would otherwise is harder to substantiate. To prove such a claim, the agency performing the analysis would need for its report both detailed information about the spending patterns of households and the ability to ferret out the information about their spending in other regions, which, at best, is extremely difficult and may even be impossible. Without such information, the report’s authors could back into this claim only with some fancy footwork and shaky assertions. That is, they would have to contend that residents are spending more in town because of higher incomes that enable households to devote more of their entertainment budgets toward local sporting events. Then, the authors would have to demonstrate that incomes are up because money was spent on the stadium. If they can’t, the argument falls apart since the only conclusion is that incomes rose for unrelated reasons; throwing tax dollars at the stadium did not affect households’ spending patterns.


Multipliers: A Stadium Promoter’s Friend

Of the three circumstances described that purportedly generate new revenues, the third—funds keep turning over locally, thereby “creating” new spending—is probably the most spurious from an economist’s viewpoint. Such a claim relies on what are called multipliers. Multipliers are factors that are used as a way of predicting the “total” effect the creation of an additional job or the spending of an additional dollar will have on a community’s economy. It works something like this: A stadium is built, which creates new jobs in the region. Because more people are working, they spend money in the area (for lunch, parking, etc.), which in turn requires local businesses to hire additional workers to support the increased demand. These extra workers further increase demand for goods and services in the area, requiring more new jobs...and so on. That is, the dollars keep turning over locally. The story is the same for fans spending money at the arena, which provides income for arena workers, who then spend the money, generating incomes for other workers...and so on.

On their faces, these are compelling arguments. Some researchers have even attempted to quantify these effects, developing precise multipliers that tell analysts how much the new spending or job creation should be “multiplied” by to arrive at the “total effect” the spending or job creation will have on the local economy. These multipliers are often specific enough to distinguish between various industries, occupations and locations. Thus, economic development specialists and planners will generally latch onto multipliers and confidently proclaim that the 1,000 new jobs created by this industry will actually create 4,355 new jobs and generate $5.5 million in new revenue in the community when all is said and done.7 Makes for great headlines, but are such outcomes believable?

Probably not. As Mark Twain once said: “It’s not what we don’t know that hurts. It’s what we know that just ain’t true.” For one thing, these new jobs most likely just lure workers away from other jobs in town and do not actually lead to a net change in jobs in the area. For another, many of the jobs are low-paying, part-time and needed only on game days. Moreover, authors of these economic impact studies often choose multipliers arbitrarily or with clients’ wishes in mind to get the desired outcome. As economist William Hunter has pointed out, multiplier analysis can be used to justify any public works project because “even the smallest multiplier will guarantee community income growth in excess of public expenditures.”8

Even if economic impact studies are taken at face value, however, the cost of creating these jobs is usually out of the ballpark. In Cincinnati, for example, when two new stadiums were proposed to keep the NFL Bengals and the MLB Reds in town, the economic impact study claimed that 7,645 jobs would be created or saved because of the stadium investment. Since the project was estimated at $520 million, each new or saved job was reported to cost about $68,000.

When economists John Blair and David Swindell examined the $68,000 figure a bit closer, though, they discovered it was too low because the study’s estimate of 7,645 new or saved jobs was too high. Blair and Swindell then re-evaluated the report, corrected for double-counting and other problems, and concluded that only 3,530 jobs would be created or saved if the stadium proposal passed. Thus, the cost per job was actually going to run more than $147,000. In contrast, state economic development programs spend about $6,250 per job to create new jobs.9


Those Old Economic Saws

Another glaring omission from these economic impact studies is the value of the next-best investment alternative—what economists call the opportunity cost. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” is a favorite economist expression because it sums up exactly what opportunity cost means: When making a choice, something always has to be given up. The value of the “losing” choice must be considered when making the decision and when calculating the value, or return, of the “winning” choice. In other words, when a city chooses to use taxpayer dollars to finance a sports stadium, the city’s leaders must consider not only what the alternative uses of those funds could be—such as schools, police, roads, etc.—but they must also figure what return the city would receive from these other ventures. Then, the return from the city’s next-best alternative (for example, schools) must be subtracted from the total return of the “winning” choice to arrive at the “actual” return of the stadium investment. This adjusted calculation, though, is almost always missing from sports stadium impact studies. Why? Because in just about every case, the adjusted calculation would show that the next-best alternative was actually the better alternative.

Has financing sports stadiums ever been the best alternative? Research shows “No.” In their book, Noll and Zimbalist—along with 15 other collaborators—examined the local economic development argument from a wide variety of angles. In every case, the conclusions were the same. “A new sports facility had an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable rate of return on investment. No recent facility has been self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues. Regardless of whether the unit of analysis is a local neighborhood, a city, or an entire metropolitan area, the economic benefits of sports facilities are de minimus.”10

In fact, research has shown that subsidizing sports facilities usually does not affect a city’s growth and, in some cases, may even hurt growth since funds are being diverted from alternatives with higher returns. In a 1994 study that examined economic growth over a 30-year period in 48 metropolitan areas, Robert Baade found that of the 32 metro areas that had a change in the number of sports teams, only two showed a significant relationship between the presence of a sports team and real per-capita personal income growth. These cities were Indianapolis, which saw a positive relationship, and Baltimore, which had a negative relationship.

Moreover, Baade found that of the 30 metro areas where the stadium or arena was built or refurbished in the previous 10 years, only three areas showed a significant relationship between the presence of a stadium and real per-capita personal income growth. And in all three cases—St. Louis, San Francisco/Oakland and Washington, D.C.—the relationship was negative.

The “Build It and They Will Come” Syndrome

Cities go to great lengths to lure a new team to town or to keep the home team home. They feel compelled to compete with other cities that offer new or updated facilities; otherwise, the home team might make good on its threat to leave. The weight of economic evidence, however, shows that taxpayers spend a lot of money and ultimately don’t get much back. And when this paltry return is compared with other potential uses of the funds, the investment, almost always, seems unwise. Still, cities eagerly propose spending the funds, and taxpayers willingly support the proposals. Why? Because home teams strike an emotional chord with the community—that intangible “civic pride” is evidently a powerful force. Thus, attacks on stadium proposals, no matter how persuasive, likely fall on deaf ears. More-convincing arguments would spell out the civic initiatives—education, housing and transportation, for example—that are passed over or forgotten in favor of a new stadium.

Adam M. Zaretsky is an economist in the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Paige M. Skiba and Abbigail J. Chiodo provided research assistance.






FEMINISHT FURY:

FROM NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE:

DAVE SHIFLETT'S "MEN O' WAR"

November 13, 2001
www.nationalreview.com


War is not the worst time for males, as some non-males have been pointing out lately, through bared incisors. As Katha Pollitt moaned recently, "911 and its sequelae have definitely rehabilitated such traditional masculine values as physical courage, upper-body strength, toughness, resolve." Firemen are adored, Hillary is booed. For those in the man-hating community, the world's a bigger nightmare than ever.

Traditional religion — with its stone churches, massive pipe organs, and a thundering Deity who tosses His enemies into a fiery lake the size of Kansas — is of far greater public interest than the religion of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Alcohol consumption of manly proportions enjoys a new respect, as does the shameless consumption of red meat, fried eggs, and perhaps a lager or two with those eggs. The battleground sports, most notably football, boxing, and siege heterosexuality, are ascendant. Even firearms are okay. Those million moms are now marching to the gun stores and buying pistols, lest Abdul come calling in the night. Those arms ain't for hugging no more.

That this is all well and good, and a welcome relief from the constant vilification of the manly attributes that has marred our age. Indeed, men can talk like men once more. When the president announced that he wanted Bin Laden "dead or alive," the usual suspects shrieked — but this time no one listened. Most people were too busy applauding the president. They want some special-forces guys to corner Bin Laden in a cave and clean him out with a Bowie knife and a Shop Vac.

But the fact is, a fuller reassertion of these virtues couldn't hurt — and not only because it would further horrify testosterophobes. Our national security requires it.

The fact is, we are at war against very tough people. They can live on a diet of dirt and rainwater. According to a Reuters dispatch from the region, they are tough even when relaxing:

"When they're in season, Ghulam Raza smokes scorpions. He says he dries their stingers in the sun and grinds them, then lights the powdery venom and sucks the smoke deep into his lungs. 'Oh yes,' he said when asked if the scorpions make him high. 'When I smoke scorpion, then the heroin is like nothing to me.'"

Another sign of their toughness can be seen in the large-scale migration of jihadists into Afghanistan just in time for the carpet-bombing. These are serious people, and they have also bought the line that America has gone soft, trading Patton for Oprah, Stonewall for Ru Paul. They need to be convinced that we mean business. There are a couple of ways of accomplishing this, one of which is a fuller exertion of our Second Amendment rights.

As all good Americans know, the Second Amendment grants individual Americans the right to have and bear arms. That there is a new appreciation for this right is not in question. As the Wall Street Journal reported on its website the other day, "More Americans are exercising their Second Amendment rights and arming themselves. The Associated Press reports applications for concealed-weapons permits are up by as much as 25% since Sept. 11. In the month after the atrocity, the FBI conducted 937,042 background checks for people seeking to buy guns or obtain concealed-weapons permits, up 21% from the same period last year."

The problem here, of course, is found in the word "concealed." In this time of war, we must shift away from concealed weaponry toward a very public show of armaments. Instead of hiding our pistols, we should return to wearing the Big Iron on our hips. This is true of everyone from airline pilots to mothers pushing perambulators through city parks.

In fact, the open display of personal weaponry should include shoulder-slung rifles and shotguns, which convey a seriousness of purpose that pistols cannot match. Let us be reminded of the fact that the sound of a homeowner jacking buckshot into a 12-gauge shotgun is the most terrifying sound in burglary. Accordingly, the sight of a perambulating mother with a Remington Wingmaster on her back, and a bandoleer of shells provocatively draping her breast, would convey a message of fidelity to constitutional liberties that our enemies need to seriously contemplate.

This show of force is especially important for Bin Laden's sleeper agents in this country, but another enemy — criminals — needs to get the same message. Violent criminals, as is well known, tend to be of limited intellectual ability but have fully operational survival instincts. They avoid people they believe may be armed, and for most, hearing the 12-gauge coming to life produces a Depends moment. Yet as has been pointed out in several news stories, criminals are increasingly active these days, apparently because they sense the police are preoccupied with homeland security. It is time for ordinary citizens to do some relief hitting.

There are other ways to rattle our enemies, of course. If we really want to deplete the Taliban forces, we should put Britney Spears or a similar pop drone on the Pakistan border and let her grind away. The enemy would desert in droves to get a look at a woman who's not covered in a sack. Minefields be damned.

Or we could parachute in Katha and let her nag them to death.


visit the WHAS11 website

hilarious new rendition of PONG, the classic video game updated for 2002

call ENRON

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