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January 30, 2007
Not just a cute orphan in glasses with a wand anymore ...
Ahem.
(is it just me, or does it seem a bit warmer around here?)
Posted by Darleen at 01:05 PM | Comments (5)
January 28, 2007
Peace at any price
I took this picture Friday as I was leaving work (sorry for the quality, I was in my car and it was dusk).
(click for larger image)
Leave aside for the moment the retro-60's gal at the left and the insincerity of the sign on the right, the sheer irony of the sign about the cost of war is lost on these small minds.
They find no cause, no morality, no values worth defending. They are for Peace [cue the violins] -- Or, as Robert Heinlein said about such "parlor pacifists"
They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their purpose is to save the human race from killing itself off; they say that too. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel -- and they'll tell you that to your face.Their opprobrium is not for America's enemies, but for its own citizens. From the unseemliness of Jane Fonda, recipient of such opportunities that only this country has had to offer her to the spittle-flecked rants of others who just want to be accepted by the in-crowd du jour, one is confronted with people who substitute feelings for thought.I won't waste time trying to judge their motives; my criticism is of their mental processes: Their heads aren't screwed on tight. They live in a world of fantasy.
Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its affairs sensibly, we could do without war.
Yes -- and if pigs had wings, they could fly.
I don't know what planet those pious pacifists are talking about but it can't be the third one out from the Sun.
Their feeling is America is not perfect so it must be remade into their image of what it should be. Their image is flawless and anything less than that image is an afront to them and so are the people who support such a flawed creation. It is a strange kind of absolutism that would not be accepted in any other situation.
Consider, what would you think of a husband who constantly, and publicly, criticized, belittled, humiliated and embarrassed his wife? What if he actually seems to get a kick out of his behavior and rarely says anything good about her? Would you accept as sincere his protest that he really does love his wife, he only points out her flaws because he wants her to improve?
No, I didn't think so. So why should we accept as sincere the statements from the Blame America First mob that they really do "love America", they just want her to improve?
Technorati: Iraq, Anti-war, peace
Posted by Darleen at 08:26 AM | Comments (40)
January 27, 2007
If I seem a little distracted ...
... and blogging a bit sporadic over the next couple of months...
Husband and I are in escrow!
It's exciting, exhausting and a little scary. Endless reams of paperwork, endless boxes to pack and a myriad of details to take care of.
All in thirty days. And since the home we are purchasing is a bit of a fixer, we are planning to take some time after close of escrow before we actually move into the house to paint, clean and repair.
Yesterday we met at the property with both real estate agents, our home inspector and the termite inspector. While the inspectors did their thing, we took photos and measurements. I'm going to fire up the Visio later and lay out the floor plan. Great way to lay out our furniture before moving.
California real estate is still whacky in comparison to much of the US, but sales have fallen off and the ability of buyers to negotiate good bargains has returned. Making the monthly payments will still take not an unconsiderable amount of KY, but at least the place will be ours!
Posted by Darleen at 08:09 AM | Comments (2)
January 25, 2007
Jhimmi Carter - the shoes keep dropping
While the most embarrassing of ex-Presidents slouches about the country attempting to defend his anti-Israel book and whine about his "hurt feelings", another story comes to light.
A former U.S. Justice Department official disclosed to Arutz-7 that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s advocacy extended beyond the PA Arabs, when he interceded on behalf of a Nazi SS man.What is amazing is that Carter, unlike the other members of the US government lobbied by the Nazi family members, never contacted Sher or his office. Jhimmi never used any of the considerable resources a former President would have at his disposal to research the Nazi family's claims.Neal Sher, a veteran of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigation, described a letter he received from Carter in 1987 in an interview with Israel National Radio’s Tovia Singer. The letter, written and signed by Carter, asked that Sher show “special consideration” for a man proven to have murdered Jews in the Mauthausen death camp in Austria. [...]
Now, following Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Sher has decided to go public with the hope that a public made aware of Carter’s support and defense of a Nazi SS man will help illustrate why the arbiter of the Camp David Accords came out with a book defending the Palestinians after the landslide election of the Islamist Hamas terror group.
“It always bothered me, but I didn’t go public with it until recently, when he wrote this book and let it spill out where his sentiments really lie,” Sher said. “Here was Jimmy Carter jumping in on behalf of someone who did not deserve in any way, shape or form special consideration. And the things he has now said about the Jewish lobby really exposes where his heart really lies.”
Click on the image for a picture of the letter with Carter's plea for special consideration.
(h/t to Beth)
Technorati: Jimmy Carter, Anti-Semitism
Posted by Darleen at 06:50 AM | Comments (6)
January 24, 2007
SOTU
I'd give the speech a B. I disagree policy wise with the President's immigration proposal (no amnesty, period, and start jailing employers), and I'm very leery of Federal fiddling with "health care". It is such meddling that has gotten us to this point (better than Canadian care, but ...). He was very strong and specific about Islamist terrorism. That can't be said enough. It was great to hear him actually name Hezbollah and set the record straight on their total responsibility for the war in southern Lebanon.
Was Pelosi having some weird reaction to botox? There was the distracting eye flutters and then she was chewing her lip as if it were numb. There was a shot of McCain looking as if he was napping and then a red-nosed John Warner with such a drawn face one would thought someone just shot his pony. Hey Warner, that yellow stripe up your back beginning to bother you?
BTW, just what is the Dem candidates plans to deal with Islamism? How much security am I to feel when either they won't even name it, or only want to talk to it, yet the Islamists just want to just murder us.
Technorati: SOTU, President Bush
Posted by Darleen at 06:40 AM | Comments (10)
January 21, 2007
Twin Blogging! Pics from the park ...
Bright and brisk was Saturday in the park. A fun day to play, walk and watch the ducks.
Sean & Nikolas
Sean & Nikolas
Sean & Nikolas
Sean
Nikolas
Posted by Darleen at 09:55 AM | Comments (6)
January 19, 2007
Spank your child ... go to jail [updated]
California's granola contingent in the state legislature is at it again
California would become the first state to explicitly ban spanking for children younger than 4 under legislation to be introduced next week.Let's state at the top that it is already against the law in California to beat your child. If one whips their child with any object ... say a belt ... one can find oneself arrested, prosecuted and taking mandatory parenting classes.Slapping, smacking, whacking or kicking also would be outlawed.
Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, a Mountain View Democrat who is crafting the measure, said corporal punishment victimizes helpless children and contributes to a society "addicted to violence."
[...]
"To my mind, there's no amount of physical force that's appropriate on a child 3 years old or younger," Lieber said.
But swatting a 3 year old's hand when they are reaching out to a hot stove? A quick open-hand swat to the butt of a two-year old having an out-of-control tantrum? Physically restraining a toddler ... picking them up and moving them away ... from any situation the parent deems inappropriate?
Aren't those kinds of physical force best left to the decisions of parents?
Oh. Another thought. I find Sally Lieber's effort to have the government ban all physical force against children ironic while she has no problem with Partial Birth Abortion. Yep, no violence against children there.
UPDATE Digger points out that Ms. Leiber has no children of her own.
Technorati: California, Spanking, Sally Leiber
Posted by Darleen at 07:03 AM | Comments (11)
January 18, 2007
Political science
...not the science of politics, but politics masquerading as science.
One good example is the term "anti-semitism"; a word coined in the late 1800's in Germany by Wilhelm Marr, a political aggitator, building on the pseudo-scientific theories on "race" popular in Europe at the time. "Anti-semitism" sounded so much more rational than Jew-hatred.
Certainly in the United States there are all manner of political groups -- supremacists and separatists, who attempt to appeal to a pseudo-scientific explanation for why the objects of their contempt are deserving of such contempt. IE "Negroes are shiftless and immoral" "Whites are ice people, cold and cruel."
It is disheartening that even today, whole groups of people can be dismissed as being lesser beings because the accusers have a political axe to grind. The accusers don't find their political opponents mistaken, but mentally ill.
Fortunately, integrity steps up to challenge such hate-filled "accepted wisdom."
(h/t Michelle Malkin)
Posted by Darleen at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2007
'War of Fleas'
Michelle Malkin and Bryan Preston have returned from Iraq. She provides a brief overview of her visit, a few pictures, outlines what she'll be writing about over the next days and provides many links more than worth your time in following.
Modern war in the Middle East is no longer as cut-and-dry as shooting all the bad guys and going home. We are fighting a "war of the fleas"--not just Sunni terrorists and Shiite death squads, but multiple home-grown and foreign operators, street gangs, organized crime, and freelance jihadis conducting ambushes, extrajudicial killings, sectarian attacks, vehicle bombings, and sabotage against American, coalition, and Iraqi forces. Cellphones, satellites, and the Internet have allowed the fleas to magnify their importance, disseminate insurgent propaganda instantly, and weaken political will.Michelle expresses high praise for the US troops she met and embedded with but, of course, wait for the goal-post moving as some slam her visit. Heaven forfend that after mocking her for not going over herself that she did, but now if she has not enlisted, trained and done a tour as a soldier she has nothing "authentic" to say.I came to Iraq a darkening pessimist about the war, due in large part to my doubts about the compatability of Islam and Western-style democracy, but also as a result of the steady, sensational diet of “grim milestone” and “daily IED count” media coverage that aids the insurgency.
I left Iraq with unexpected hope and resolve.
Amazing to see the 'chickenhawk' meme continuing to reinvent itself to provide a political security blanket for the intellectually berift.
Technorati: Michelle Malkin, Iraq
Posted by Darleen at 06:34 AM | Comments (4)
January 16, 2007
Anuther Proud Publik Skool Moment
What students have learned about Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr.
In a recent survey of college students on U.S. civic literacy, more than 81 percent knew that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was expressing hope for "racial justice and brotherhood" in his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.Ah, geez.That's the good news.
Most of the rest surveyed thought King was advocating the abolition of slavery.
Technorati: Martin Luther King
Posted by Darleen at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)
January 15, 2007
Celebrating a great American
Today the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. falls on his actual birthday. Too often we take Monday holidays as just long weekends with little thought to what we are honoring.
Dr. King was the conscience of the nation and while most of us are aware of his "I have a dream" speech, I thought to post another one of his ... "I see the Promised Land" ... as moving as any he ever gave and chilling in its prescience (he was assassinated the day after he gave this speech).
Read it and wonder if such a moving piece, with its pervasive religious references and its refusal to go negative, would be lauded or celebrated if given fresh today.
Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy in his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest friend and associate say something good about you. And Ralph is the best friend that I have in the world.May Dr. King's words, deeds and legacy be alive forever.I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.
As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?"-- I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.
But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom I'm named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.
But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding--something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya: Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee--the cry is always the same--"We want to be free."
And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we're going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.
That is where we are today. And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period, to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that he's allowed me to be in Memphis.
I can remember, I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.
And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.
Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.
Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers were on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.
Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be. And force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: we know it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.
We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do. I've seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round." Bull Connor next would say, "Turn the fire hoses on." And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denomination, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water.
That couldn't stop us. And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing. "Over my head I see freedom in the air." And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, "Take them off," and they did; and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, "We Shall Overcome." And every now and then we'd get in the jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham.
Now we've got to go on to Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be with us Monday. Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, "Be true to what you said on paper." If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.
We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me, is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and say, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow, the preacher must say with Jesus, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."
And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. Rev. Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I want to thank them all. And I want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry.
It's alright to talk about "long white robes over yonder," in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's alright to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey," but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.
Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people, individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively, that means all of us together, collectively we are richer than all the nation in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.
We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, "God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda--fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you."
And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy--what is the other bread?--Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take you money out of the banks downtown and deposit you money in Tri-State Bank--we want a "bank-in" movement in Memphis. So go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to follow what we're doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an "insurance-in."
Now there are some practical things we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.
Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, because he had the capacity to project the "I" into the "thou," and to be concerned about his brother. Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop. At times we say they were busy going to church meetings--an ecclesiastical gathering--and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that "One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony." And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather to organize a "Jericho Road Improvement Association." That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the casual root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effort.
But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?".
That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" "If I do no stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.
You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, "Are you Martin Luther King?"
And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood--that's the end of you.
It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said. I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, "Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the Whites Plains High School." She said, "While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze."
And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze. Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream. And taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great movement there. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.
And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, "We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night."
And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say that threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Technorati: Martin Luther King
Posted by Darleen at 08:57 AM | Comments (8)
January 12, 2007
White stuff!!!
Just took these pics of my home in Southern California ten minutes ago .... (click on small images for really really big ones)
Posted by Darleen at 08:15 AM | Comments (7)
Barbara Boxer - Insufferable Bitch*
Babs was first elected to the Senate when her campaign pulled a sleeze dirty trick, and she has rarely wandered away from such schtick. Even her supposed moment of clarity when she withdrew an award from a person who hid their position with terrorist-front organization CAIR can't quite take away from a career filled with stupidity and a craven sense of entitlement -- i.e. Babs being one of the queens of check kiting in the 1992 Congressional scandal. Think any of us 'little people' would have been able to bounce over 300 checks and suffer no consequence?
Now, probably taking a page from patrician Nancy Pelosi's PR campaign of trying to remake herself into humble granny, Boxer decided to go personal with Dr. Condoleezza Rice and attack Dr. Rice for the awful sin of being single and not having kids
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., noted Rice has no children of her own to lose overseas. "Who pays the price?" Boxer repeatedly demanded. "You’re not going to pay a particular price," she told Rice, because the secretary has no "immediate family" at risk.Dr. Rice is a class act, in contrast to the California Cunt* Senator.Rice is notably unflappable. Her face was tight, her voice even, occasionally and briefly speeding up to meet the jabs coming her way. She did not give much away or lose her temper.
See, I would have leveled my glare at Babs and said something like
Sister, not only will every American have something to pay if Islamists do as promised and start bringing their bombers here because you and the rest of the cut-n-runners want to surrender in Iraq, but you have some brass ovaries in suggesting that I'm somehow less authentic to speak on this issue because I haven't bred to your specifications. Real feminist solidarity there, bitch. And if you want to play the 'blood tie' card, let's talk about your grandfather paying for the boats that hauled my grandfather to the new world in chains, eh?See? This is why I'd never make it in Congress. I don't suffer fools like Babs well.
*I used "bitch" in the title because "cunt" may not make it past certain filters.
UPDATE
see Beth
NY Post
AllahPundit has the video
Caltechgirl
No wonder American women are conflicted. We now MUST be superwoman. We can't be an important part of the political discourse of this country unless we're wives and mothers, evidently.Heh.Ironic turn of events, no? 100 years ago wives and mothers were thought to be the least fit to have a political opinion. Now, according to Mrs. Boxer, the only women fit to make political decisions are wives and mothers.
Technorati: Iraq, Barbara+Boxer, Condoleeza Rice
Posted by Darleen at 06:37 AM | Comments (36)
January 11, 2007
Iraq -- MM, VDH and BDS
Michelle Malkin makes her first report from Baghdad.
Having met, watched, and interviewed a broad cross-section of our troops during our brief but fruitful travels, my faith in the U.S. military has never been stronger-- but I will not sugarcoat my skepticism and doubts about decisions being made in Washington.Check out the pics.
Victor Davis Hanson has the last (and best) word on the President's speech last night.
So the increase — no one knows whether the 20,000 number is adequate — could make things far worse by offering more targets and creating more Iraqi dependency if we don’t change our operations. But if the surge ups the ante by bringing a radical new approach on the battlefield as the president promises, then it is worth his gamble. [...]As for the usual dreck from the Ted Kennedy side of the aisle (I swear, Uncle Teddy got his first erection in thirty years by announcing this as the optimal plan for Iraq. Wants to relive his "glory" days, I suppose.) ... I stop reading the "reviews" when the writers delve into the usual BDS memes (dictator, puppet of Zionists, to get his dad's approval, too stupid and mean, hates brown people, the ooooiiiiillll ...) yada yada yada....note the pathetic Democratic reply by Sen. Durbin, last in the public eye for his libel of American troops (as analogous to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others”). There was no response. [...]
...So where does that leave us? [...] In other words, as in all wars, the pulse of the battlefield will determine the ensuing politics. So let’s win in pursuit of victory, and everything else will sort itself out.
Technorati: Iraq, Surge, President Bush Speech
Posted by Darleen at 06:37 AM | Comments (15)
January 10, 2007
'All right, who invited Congress?'
Posted by Darleen at 09:03 PM | Comments (12)
January 09, 2007
Random
Lots of guest bloggers at Michelle Malkin's while it seems Michelle is starting her tour of Iraq. Which will come as an unwelcome surprise to the Left (some who want her to die* there, or some who became convinced she was never going to go).
Jeff Harrell writes better in a random paragraph or two then most published authors can in whole books ... and his tagline on this post is worthy of the next Portable Curmudgeon.
Go watch this and then tell me that it's just a few randon nutz in Islam and they are no threat to the United States.
Indeed, how this person and his "source" not a threat?
Not all is doom, gloom and curmudgeony ... there is Heather Armstrong's account of a night in suburbia, Greta's find the tackiest thing on ebay Contest, and Zombie brings us pics of the latest Frisco hilarity.
UPDATE * to be clear, the author of the post is not wishing death to Michelle, but many of the commenters are ... and I used the post as an illustration of what I've read elsewheres on Kos and democraticunderground.
Posted by Darleen at 06:48 AM | Comments (9)
January 07, 2007
Remix
Via Hot Air. This is not the original video put out by Stuck Mojo, but a remix from one of their fans. Powerful. (language warning)
Charles Johnson chronicles CAIR's self-serving hysteria.
Technorati: Stuck Mojo, Open Season, Cair, Islamic Fascism
Posted by Darleen at 11:19 AM | Comments (3)
Blog service announcement
In the two and a half years this blog has been active, I've only had to ban a couple of commenters (and only because they refused to stop making personal attacks against my daughters).
I rarely censor commenters (I may delete obscene language, but I always note so).
My habit has been to allow commenters to stand on their own words. Good, bad, ugly ... I believe we all own our own words.
I shouldn't have to say this since it has become accepted protocol across any blog with open comments ... but I am not responsible for the opinions of those that comment here.
If someone claims a fact, I may challenge them to source it. Or if someone engages in specific personal attacks that are either libelous or advocate violence against another person, I will take appropriate action.
However, the open discourse of blogging serves the purpose of allowing people to reveal themselves, warts and all. I don't mind allowing such warts to remain in the comments, no matter from what side the aisle they originate. It shouldn't be construed as concurrence on my part if I don't censor them.
I welcome any thoughts if such a policy on my part is acceptable or should be changed.
Posted by Darleen at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2007
Today in 1979 ...
... I was in the hospital, having just given birth to my first child.
Happy Birthday, Jennifer!
Posted by Darleen at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2007
Just a FYI - is rape treated differently than other crime?
As I occassionally lurk on the leftist-feminist sites, I've lately noticed a storm dealing with the subject of rape (No, not the debacle of the Duke rape-hoax. It seems to have completely dropped off their radar, after the sustained ballyhooing of how "this is what you get from white boys of priviledge in the misogynist, racist Patriarchy".) If a writer isn't 100% and uncritically "sex-positive" then they must be a rape apologist.
Leaving aside for a moment what really constituties "rape apology" (and reitterating for a moment that the difference between rape and love-making is consent and if consent is not there, then rape has taken place), a followup post contains this
The law discriminates against rape victims in a manner which would not be tolerated by victims of any other crime. In the following example, a holdup victim is asked questions similar in form to those usually asked a victim of rape.The list of hypothetical questions that the writer finds "unacceptable" continues.“Mr. Smith, you were held up at gunpoint on the corner of 16th and Locust?”
“Yes.”
“Did you struggle with the robber?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He was armed.”
“Then you made a conscious decision to comply with his demands rather than to resist?”
“Yes.”
It's possible the writer actually believes that similar questions are not asked of other crimes.
Let me at least disabuse people of such "accepted wisdom".
When victims of autotheft are interviewed, they will be asked at the top of the interview if they know the suspect and if they gave permission to the suspect to have the car. They will also be asked if the car was locked or whether the keys were in the car.
When victims of credit card theft/identity theft are interviewed, they will be asked at the top of the interview if they know the suspect and if they gave permission to the suspect to use their card/information.
When victims of residential burlargy are interviewed, they will be asked at the top of the interview if they know the suspect and if they gave permission to the suspect to enter their home and remove the property. They'll also be asked about unlocked windows and doors.
This is standard questioning. It is gathering of all relevant facts concerning the case. The deputy district attorney will need the answers to such questions because those are the things the defense will bring up -- beit autotheft, armed robberty or rape.
Such questioning doesn't constitute judging the victim. The writer does veer at the end of the hypothetical questions into statements that are the province of defense attorneys, not law enforcement officers.
Rape is a horrendous enough crime on its own without making it a political fetish of authenticity.
Posted by Darleen at 12:46 PM | Comments (17)
Why am I supposed to be excited about Pelosi?
I don't engage in vulva voting.
And considering her faux-humble roots, her willingness to keep corrupt Dems in positions of power, and her advocacy of legislation that wants to shut down the free speech of individual citizens (like this blog), Pelosi's vulva is actually an embarrassment...
on more than one level ...
Technorati: Nancy Pelosi
Posted by Darleen at 07:26 AM | Comments (12)
January 04, 2007
With a little help ...
I start "de-Christmasing" on New Year's. Down come the lights, away with the ornaments, out comes the vacuum for the drifts of holiday flotsam.
The cats decided to help by pushing the sparkly batting off the piano and making a bed of it.
Posted by Darleen at 12:31 PM | Comments (1)
January 02, 2007
Why the LA Times keeps losing readers
Patterico posts his fourth annual Los Angeles Dog Trainer - Year in Review 2006
A masterful piece, if only for Patterico's courage in perseverance in reading the LA Times on a daily basis. A thorough, indepth and well-written (sourced with a plethora of links) look at a year of sloppy journalism, perfidy, and partisanship from Los Angeles' only major metropolitan newspaper.
Bravo.
Technorati: Los Angeles Times
Posted by Darleen at 06:41 AM | Comments (1)