I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number one video cassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. Beavis and Butthead remains popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning - not just of science, but of anything - are avoidable, even undesirable. We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements - transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting - profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
If we really want to stop terrorism, we have to get Muslim men laid.
March 20, 2004 | New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer
Five British Muslims who were recently sent home from our prison at Guantanamo charge that their American captors brought in prostitutes to taunt them, because most had never even seen a naked woman before. It made me wonder how many members of al-Qaida have ever even dated a girl. We should hire women to infiltrate al-Qaida cells, and fuck them.
Things would change quickly. Because young Muslim men don't really hate America, they're jealous of America. We have rap videos, the Hilton sisters and magazines with titles like "Barely Legal." You know what's barely legal in Afghanistan? Everything.
Young men need sex, and if they don't get it for month after month after month, they wind up cursing the day they ever decided to go to Cornell.
Have you ever wondered why the word from the Arab street is so angry? It's because it's a bunch of guys standing in the street! Which is what guys do when they don't have girlfriends, or aren't allowed to even talk to a girl -- of course they want to commit suicide. Unlike this country, where it's the married guys who wanna kill themselves.
But here, we always have hope. You can at least talk to a girl, and one might be crazy enough to go for you. Or you could get rich, and buy one, like folks do where I live in Beverly Hills.
The connection between no sex and anger is real: It's why prizefighters stay celibate when they're in training, so that on fight night they're pissed off and ready to kill. It's why football players don't have sex after Wednesday. And, conversely, it's why Bill Clinton never started a war.
So to paraphrase the sign in his old war room: It's the nooky, stupid. We need the Coalition of the Willing to be really willing. We need to mobilize two divisions of skanks, a regiment of ho's, and a brigade of girls who just can't say no. All under the command of Col. Ann Coulter, who'll be dressed in her "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S." uniform.
Forget the Peace Corps, we need a piece-of-ass-corps. Girls, there's a cure to terrorism, and you're sitting on it
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Host Guy Raz Talks To '2016: Obama's America' Filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza
In mid-July, an obscure film called 2016: Obama's America opened in just one theater in Houston. The film proposes that President Obama is weakening the country — deliberately.
Conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza, its co-director and star, traveled to Hawaii, Indonesia and Kenya to test that theory, and this week, his film could be seen at 1,500 theaters across America.
Many critics have blasted the conspiratorial tone of the film, which D'Souza calls a documentary.
Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz spoke with D'Souza and asked what he means when he argues that the president is trying to weaken America. "This is a matter of having an ideological hypothesis that comes right out of Obama's book [Dreams of My Father]. And by laying it forward, people who watch the film can make up their own mind," D'Souza says.
Interview Highlights On why he thinks President Obama is deliberately trying to weaken the U.S. economy
"Obama is an anti-colonialist. He has a dream, and it's the dream from his father. Anti-colonialism generally is based on the premise that the Western countries, and now the United States, have become rich by invading and occupying and looting the poor countries, so that the wealth of the world is unfairly distributed. And what Obama wants to do is correct that. How do you correct it? You correct it ultimately by making sure that the previous colonized countries have better access to growth and power, and if there's a cost for that you put the cost on the colonizers, in this case the United States."
On why he believes President Obama's family background influences his policies
"I would not normally hold Obama accountable for the views of either his father or his mother had he not written a book detailing how influential his father and also to some degree his mother have been on him. So I'm simply following Obama's story."
On former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker's assertion that the film was misrepresented when he agreed to be interviewed for it
"The interview with David Walker was on the specific topic of debt and I don't attribute to David Walker the argument of the film or even my view that Obama uses debt as a form of global re-distribution. So, we don't misrepresent him in any way, he doesn't claim we do."
Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. Transcript
GUY RAZ, HOST:
And if you're just joining us, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.
In mid-July, an obscure film called "2016: Obama's America" opened in just one theater in Houston.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "2016: OBAMA'S AMERICA")
DINESH D'SOUZA: Obama has a dream, a dream from his father, that the sins of colonialism be set right and America be downsized.
RAZ: The film proposes that President Obama is weakening the country deliberately. Its co-director and star is conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza. He traveled to Hawaii, Indonesia and Kenya where he tests his theory. And this week, D'Souza's film could be seen in one of 1,500 theaters across America. Now, many critics have blasted the conspiratorial tone of the film, which D'Souza calls a documentary.
I spoke to him this week. Here's an excerpt of our conversation. And I first asked him to explain what he means when he argues that the president is trying to weaken America.
D'SOUZA: He wants America to have less wealth and power so that other people in other countries can have more wealth and power.
RAZ: All right. Let's assume that maybe some of your arguments are, in fact, true. Why would he be doing this?
D'SOUZA: Obama is an anti-colonialist. He has a dream, and it's the dream from his father. Anti-colonialism generally is based on the premise that the Western countries, and now the United States, have become rich by invading and occupying and looting the poor countries, so that the wealth of the world is unfairly distributed. And what Obama wants to do is correct that.
How do you correct it? You correct it ultimately by making sure that the previously colonized countries have better access to growth and power. And if there's a cost for that, you put the cost on the colonizers, in this case the United States.
RAZ: Let's go through some of the arguments you raise in the film because, of course, I have seen the film. And you seem to hold his background, his African father and his mother who was from Kansas originally, you seem to hold these things against him. President Obama's never hidden his past, where he comes from, his background. I wonder if that's fair. I mean, he doesn't have any control over who his father was or who his mother was.
D'SOUZA: Oh, right. I would not normally hold Obama accountable for the views of either his father or his mother had he not written a book detailing how influential his father and also to some degree his mother have been on him. So I'm simply only following Obama's story. Look, it's odd for Obama defenders to say, he's a multicultural guy, he's different, he's not like any president we've had before, and then say, well, but it's illegitimate to ask how multicultural he is, how different he is, in what way he is different from traditional Democrats like Clinton or Kerry or Carter or Dukakis.
I think Obama is different from traditional Democrats in that traditional Democrats want to redistribute income in America while Obama wants to realign America in the world.
RAZ: At several times in the film, we hear President Obama reading from his book, "Dreams from my Father," including a passage where he describes how he was attracted to left-wing students, to structural feminists and others, foreign students as a young college student. But you exclude the part of the book that explains how he eventually rejected those ideas. The whole point of the book is about his transformation. Why did you omit that?
D'SOUZA: I don't agree that Obama rejected the beliefs of his college years. It would be different if Obama had said as an adult, well, you know what, I had some crazy beliefs when I was a kid. I hung out with some unsavory characters, but I now reject all that. I've learned better. I've changed my mind. But Obama has never repudiated his book. He's never taken back the points that he made there.
RAZ: David Walker, the former head of the GAO, is interviewed in this film about the debt. I called him, and I asked him what he felt about it. He says that when he was asked to be interviewed, the film was misrepresented to him. Did everybody you interview know what this film was going to be about?
D'SOUZA: I think so. Now, look, the interview with David Walker was on a - on the specific topic of debt. And I don't attribute to David Walker the argument of the film, or even my view, that Obama uses debt as a form of global redistribution. So we don't misrepresent him in any way. He doesn't claim we do. And also, a film being a journey, there are people in the film who like Obama. You know, Alice Dewey, the anthropologist in the film, ended our interview by saying, hey, I hope Obama does get re-elected.
RAZ: Was she aware of what you were - the direction in which you were going? This is a professor at the University of Hawaii.
D'SOUZA: Right. We said we were making a film that was going to look closely at Obama's life and look at Obama's world and say what the world would look like if Obama were to be re-elected. And on that basis, she was quite happy to be interviewed.
RAZ: Dinesh D'Souza, if you wanted to criticize or attack President Obama, why bend the truth? Why not just offer a policy critique rather than conjecture, and in many cases in this film, conspiracy?
D'SOUZA: This is not a matter of conjecture. This is a matter of having an ideological hypothesis that comes right out of Obama's book. And by laying it forward, people who watch the film can make up their own mind.
RAZ: That's Dinesh D'Souza. His new film is called "2016: Obama's America." Dinesh D'Souza, thank you.
D'SOUZA: You're welcome.
RAZ: And you can hear our full unedited conversation at npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
TIMES CHANGES
The New York Times editorial of October 2, 1999, defends the display of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ and Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary: A museum is obliged to challenge the public as well as to placate it, or else the museum becomes a chamber of attractive ghosts, an institution completely disconnected from art in our time. The New York Times editorial of September 12, 2012, condemns the display of The Innocence of Muslims: Whoever made the film did true damage to the interests of the United States and its core principle of respecting all faiths. Whatever happened to “challenging the public”? Or is that obligation rendered non-obligatory when a certain public responds to challenges by killing people?
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Dr. Barbara Bellar – Obamacare Summed Up in One Sentence
So let me get this straight. (This is a long sentence.)
We’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which puportedly covers at least 10 million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding (laughing & applause) same sentence – with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted social security and medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and (laughing & applause) and financed by a country that’s broke. (laughing & applause)
So, what the blank (laughing & applause) could possibly go wrong?
Sunday, September 9, 2012
A Himnusz: A MI HIMNUSZUNK MÁS MINT A TÖBBI . . . . . . . .
1823. január 22.én írta le Kölcsey Ferenc Himnuszunk szövegét szatmárcsekei magányában. Erkel Ferenc jó húsz esztendővel később zenésítette meg.
Gyönyörű költői mű e 64 sor.
A tudós irodalomtörténészek azonban nem túl gyakran emlegetik, hogy valójában miért is más ez, mint sok európai ország himnusza.
Mindjárt válaszolok rá - három példával is:
A németek például a Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, Über alles in der Welt kezdetű szöveget ma már nem éneklik. A második világháború után - mondjuk így - a győztes Európa tiltakozott e megfogalmazás ellen, mert e szöveg ugyebár annyit jelent, hogy Németország mindenek feletti, mindenek felett áll - az egész világon. Megmaradt Haydn gyönyörű zenéje és ma, az eredeti himnusz-vers harmadik szakaszát éneklik a németek. - Bármily hihetetlen is, de csak 1991 óta.
A Szovjetunió himnusza a soha nem létező szabadságot emberiség legnagyobb pusztítóit, Lenint és Sztálin éltette évtizedeken át. A mostani Oroszországnak - mondjuk így a jogutódnak - csupán 10 esztendős a himnusza.
A franciáké, az úgynevezett La Marseillaise - a vérben álló harcról szól és fegyverbe hív.
E rövidke európai példákat csak azért hoztam ide, hogy lássuk a legfontosabbat. Azt ugyanis, hogy a mi Himnuszunk nem éltet királyt, uralkodót, nem himnusza még a honszerző Árpádnak sem, az ország építő IV. Bélának úgyszintén nem, de még a diadalt diadalra halmozó Mátyást sem dicsőíti.
A mi Himnuszunk az évszázadokon át szorongatott, kétségbeesett nép IMÁDSÁGA a mi megtartó Istenünkhöz.
Az irodalom tudós művelői tehát gyakran felejtik el - így emlegetni e csodálatos 64 sort. Tehát, hogy ez egy KÖZBENJÁRÓ IMÁDSÁG: Isten áldd meg a magyart!
Amíg nem volt Kölcsey Himnusza, addig is volt a magyarságnak összetartó, kollektív imádsága, a nép ajkán őrzött énekekkel. Nem minden időszakban, nem mindig azonos belső erővel, hiszen pl. az elmúlt század diktatúrái / 1919-re gondolok és az 55 évig tartó magyar bolsevizmusra / tűzzel vassal irtottak mindent, ami nem a parancsszó ideológiája szerint született. De mondom: voltak a nép ajkán őrzött énekek, pl. a Boldog-asszony anyánk, a Székely Himnusz / ne hagyd elveszni Erdélyt Istenünk /, a reformátusok 90-ik zsoltára: "Te benned bíztuk eleitől fogva", vagy az evangélikusok "Erős vár a mi Istenünk" kezdetű Luther éneke.
Tehát mindig az Isten segítségét, áldását kértük harcaink elcsüggedésünk, elnyomatásaink nehéz éveiben, vagy balsors tépte évtizedeink alatt.
Ilyen Himnuszt tehát egyetlen európai nép sem mondhat magáénak, mint amilyet nekünk hagyott örökül a 33 éves Kölcsey, a szatmárcsekei szoba csendjében. A Nemzeti Múzeumban őrzött kéziratban csak egy-egy parányi javítás látható, tehát szinte ömlött a tolla alól e felséges 64 sor.
Sajnos mindmáig nem védi az Alkotmány nemzeti imádságunkat, pedig rátört a sorokra maga Rákosi is az 5o-es évek elején mondván: az mégsem lehet, hogy a dolgozó nép Himnusza, vagy bármely ünnepség az Isten nevével kezdődjön. Alattomos terve céljából magához kérette Kodály Zoltánt azzal a felszólítással, hogy írjon másikat, a szocializmushoz illőt.
Kodály rövid választ adott az élet és halál diktátorának. Ezt mondta: ahhoz sem hozzátenni sem abból elvenni nem lehet. Kodály a fejével játszott ebben a percben, de akkor Ő már Kodály Zoltán volt, a magyar zenekultúra és művelődés világszerte megkérdőjelezhetetlen tekintélye.
Rákosi nem nyugodott. Illyés Gyulát is magához intette, aki akkor a költészet, a haladó magyar gondolkodás legnagyobb vezéreként volt számon tartva itthon is, külhonban is, különösen Franciaországban. Írjon egy új Himnusz szöveget, mondta Rákosi, majd keresünk hozzá zeneszerzőt. A felszólításra Illyés ennyit válaszolt csupán: meg van az már írva.
Miért fontos ma, hogy a hamar árvaságra jutó, betegségekkel küzdő, Kölcsey mit hagyott ránk e nemzeti imában?
Azért fontos, mert a Himnusz megírásának napját január 22.-ét 1989 óta a Magyar Kultúra Napjának mondjuk ugyan - ám a magyar művészetek,a kultúra a szemünk előtt silányul el vagy hever romokban.
Ez az állapot kiállásra, kitartásra, s ha kell kiáltásra kell, hogy kényszerítsen minden jóérzésű, gondolkodó embert, a magyar értelmiséget pedig kötelezően.