Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

Empowerment: Women Now Choose Objectification Over ‘Creepy’ Breastfeeding

What does one say about a woman like Kathryn Blundell, who says breastfeeding is creepy?  She claims she wants her body back and doesn't want a "teeny, tiny, innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before."  I kid you not.  That is Blundell's published statement.  And believe it or not, she is the editor of the parenting magazine, Mother &  Baby.   Lori Ziganto offers her take:

What bothers me immensely is the fact that women now see their breasts as “fun bags” and as something meant for “lovers” only and not as a part of nurturing and motherhood. This concept epitomizes the very worst in female and motherhood degradation and it shows just how much damage the “sexual empowerment” fallacy, pushed by the Leftist Femisogynists, has caused. The thought that women should exist solely as sex objects is now rampant — even amongst women themselves.

The theory behind this whole article, in a woman’s parenting magazine, is that motherhood and nurturing a child is, as they always claim, a punishment. Something that results in the cramping of one’s “empowered” style. Sex is super fun! Motherhood? Not so much. Also, creepy. And anyone who says otherwise is a nutty wing nut liar!

They have ended up diminishing women and womanhood itself with these constant attempts to demonize motherhood and to try to turn it into a punishment and a detriment to one’s happiness. Instead of realizing that being a life bearing nurturer is one of the very best things about being a woman and is an attribute in and of itself, they constantly try to take that away, all in the name of some delusional perceived equality via sexual empowerment.  [more . . .]

Me:  Blundell represents the creepiness of a culture out of its mind, a culture in rebellion against the "created order" which God designed for the flourishing of all.

CUBA ELECTED VICE-PRESIDENT OF U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

This is sick.  One looks for an exit from the current mad house.  Except it's for real.  Our president is part of the cast of characters making it all possible.  From Jay Nordlinger:

Have you heard the latest news from the U.N. Human Rights Council — the most exalted body within the most exalted body in all the world? Cuba, as a nation — as a government, rather — has been elected vice president of the council. In celebration, the Cuban government put out a statement:

“The election of Cuba to this important post recognizes the exemplary work of the Cuban Revolution in favor of the human rights of its people and the world. It also shows respect for Cuba’s active and committed work as a founding member of the U.N. Human Rights Council in defense of truth and justice and for its leadership in favor of the noblest causes.”

Bear in mind that Cuba is a one-party dictatorship with a gulag. (Therefore, it’s perfect for the U.N. Human Rights Council.)

Can you stand a little more news? Miguel d’Escoto, the old Sandinista foreign minister, and a classic anti-American and anti-Semite, has just been appointed to the council’s advisory panel. Of course.

And, in this article, Anne Bayefsky tells us this: “With the adoption of yet another resolution critical of Israel, the Council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 UN member states combined.”

Our previous president, George W. Bush, thought that the United States should have nothing to do with this council — that it was too disgraceful to join. Too contrary to the U.N.’s founding principles to dignify. His successor, President Obama, immediately had the U.S. join the council. The argument of Team Obama was that the U.S., by its presence, would improve the council.

Sure! Nice going, guys.

NOTEWORTHY POSTS FROM "WINTERY KNIGHT"

I check the posts of my blogging friend "Wintery Knight" (we've never met) on a regular basis.  Herewith some posts I want to preserve for future reference.

--  New book on intelligent design for beginners

--  MUST-SEE: Police arrest Christians for distributing the gospel in Dearborn, Michigan

--  Adult stem cells used to restore sight to patients blinded by chemical burns

--  Grandmother in Scotland jailed for five years for owning family heirloom handgun

--  A Great debate on whether the Bible condones slavery

--  Artificial insemination and fatherlessness - "a woman's right to choose"

--  Public schools give 5 year olds free condoms without parental consent

--  William Lane Craig - Christian defender of the faith

MUSLIM LEADER ADMITS ISLAM IS NOT A RELIGION OF PEACE

HT: AtlasShrugs

"There is a place for violence in Islam."

FOUNDERS OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC - ROUGH AND TUMBLE POLITICS

Ron Chernow, writing of "The Feuding Fathers," in the Wall Street Journal, says

 . . . there was nothing genteel about politics at the nation's outset. For sheer verbal savagery, the founding era may have surpassed anything seen today. Despite their erudition, integrity, and philosophical genius, the founders were fiery men who expressed their beliefs with unusual vehemence. . .   People who spearhead revolutions tend to be outspoken and courageous, spurred on by a keen taste for combat. After sharpening their verbal skills hurling polemics against the British Crown, the founding generation then directed those energies against each other during the tumultuous first decade of the federal government. The passions of a revolution cannot simply be turned off like a spigot.

In a sidebar, Chernow gives some examples:

Alexander Hamilton on Thomas Jefferson:  - "He is not scrupulous about the means of success, nor very mindful of truth, and... he is a contemptible hypocrite." 

John Adams on Alexander Hamilton: "The bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar." 

Read the article for the horrible things said about President George Washington.  Historical perspective deepens our understanding of human behavior and political passions.  

COST OF WORLD CUP TICKETS

I read in today's Wall Street Journal that a seat for today's Ghana-USA game were going for $283.  That was according to ticket-price forecaster SeatGeek.com.  David Biderman says "That's cheaper than six of the round's other seven matches.  A seat at Sunday's Argentina-Mexico match is going for $633, while tickets for the title game are already at $2,347." 

Me: I appreciate the opportunity to see the game on TV for zilch.  I also note that not everyone is excited about soccer.  Englishman (now American) John Derbyshire stands by his 2000 article in which he minces no words:

What really needs explaining is not why Americans do not care to watch soccer, but why the rest of the world does. With the probable exception of cricket, it is the most boring game ever devised, and has been trending in the direction of utter eventlessness for several decades. . . It is amazing, in such a busy age, that so many people are willing to spend ninety minutes watching a game that frequently has no result.

Derbyshire goes on to write of hooliganism among the fans and brain injuries among the players.

I personally have been enjoying the World Cup games I've been able to see.  Especially intriguing has been the ball control footwork,  accurate passing, and the setting up of attacks.  Quite extraordinary really. 

Update: Ghana beat the USA  2 to 1 in overtime.

Update #2 - (HT: Joyce)

Christianity Today magazine reports:

Ghana: The Team That Prays Together

America's Saturday World Cup opponent is reportedly one in the Spirit.

Ted Olsen

The team America faces Saturday in its second round World Cup matchup is spiritually united, ESPN's Jeff Bradley reports.

"We love to sing together, dance together, pray together," Ghana striker Asamoah Gyan told Bradley. "It brings joy to our hearts. This is our team."

Bradley says that spirit continues to the field. "What I've noticed, more than anything, about the Black Stars, is they are a team in every sense of the word," he wrote. "From their pregame (and postgame, and halftime, and pre-training and post-training) songs and prayers, to their disciplined adherence to Rajevac's rigid system that features a single striker, they are true believers that the whole can be greater than the sum of its individual pieces. ... It's 11 together with one goal."

Captain John Mensah (right) told the German news service DPA that prayer is no afterthought.

"We are Christians and we all know how important God is," he said. "We all respect God and we pray every time before the game and after the game. ... We praise God, what he has done for us. Then the next day is match-day, so we use that opportunity to give us strength and help us go on into the game."

The team isn't praying alone. The government and nation's churches have called for united prayers at home for the team.

And now that Ghana is the only African team left in the World Cup, Cameroon players Alex Song and Samuel Eto’o both said, in separate interviews, "Everybody must pray for Ghana."

The country of Ghana is 83 percent Christian--mostly Protestant (71%) and Pentecostal (26%). 83 percent of Christians say they attend services at least weekly.

THE 100 AMERICANS THE LEFT HATES MOST

Townhall Magazine has the list and offers commentary on each.  Guess who makes up the first five?  Correct!  Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, and Ann Coulter.  #6 is Michelle Malkin.  I'll let you go to the website to see the rest.

One final comment.  For those who might be interested in well-known Christians, James Dobson ranks 38th, Tony Perkins  (President of the Family Research Council) #54, Tim Tebow #74 (Tim Tebow???!!  the U. of Florida football player?!), Franklin Graham #63, Ken Blackwell of the Family Research Council #85.  Of course many other clearly identifiable Christians are also on the list.

HT: Ed Morrissey

JONI EARECKSON TADA TO UNDERGO SURGERY FOR BREAST CANCER

Update 6/26/10 : Her surgery will be Monday afternoon, June 28th.

Press release here.

ERNEST STERNBERG - "PURIFYING THE WORLD: WHAT THE NEW RADICAL IDEOLOGY STANDS FOR"

Utopianism is back with a vengeance.   We don't understand modern political passions if we don't grasp the vision that animates Leftist thinking, at least certain segments of the Left.  I am indebted to Daniel Pipes' review article pointing me to the subject of his review, Ernest Sternberg's essay,“Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For.”

Sternberg, who teaches at the University of Buffalo, writes:

We are in the midst of the worldwide rise of a non-religious chiliastic movement, which preaches global human renewal and predicts apocalypse as its alternative. Like its twentieth century predecessors, the new ideology provides an intellectual formula through which to identify the present world’s depredations, imagines a pure new world that eliminates them, and mobilizes the disaffected and alienated for the sake of radical change. Like the followers of totalitarianisms past, the new ideologues also see themselves as the vanguard for the highest humanitarian ideals. If many of us have failed to recognize the rise of this new movement, the reason may be that we are still trapped in defunct ideological categories.

This promises to be essential reading.  

BUMPER STICKERS

From a friend's e-mail:

 

TRAILER FOR "VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER"

Coming this Christmas:  (HT: Between Two Worlds)

I confess I am not a fan of these movies.  I think they would be far stronger if the movie makers would stick more faithfully to C. S. Lewis's actual stories.  Christianity Today, ("Will the 'Dawn Treader' Float?") suggests this new one will be an improvement over Prince Caspian.   May it be so!

WORLD MAGAZINE'S BOOK OF THE YEAR

Marvin Olasky:  (HT: Justin Taylor)

WORLD’s book of the year is The Battle: How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America’s Future (May 2010, Basic Books). This succinct work by Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, is the right book at this moment in U.S. history.

Honoring a book on current political and economic questions is unusual for WORLD. Our books of the year in 2008 and 2009 were The Reason for God and The ESV Study Bible. We generally rate timeless higher than timely—but sometimes we have to pay attention to the immediate. Samuel Johnson said, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” As the United States careens toward a crucial fall election, The Battle is concentrating minds.

WORLD’s 2010 Book of the Year makes a ­compelling case that the clash ­between free ­enterprise and socialism is a moral battle.  Read the whole review here.

Update: 6/23/10 - Kathryn Jean Lopez conducts a major interview with Arthur C. Brooks here.  Lopez interview with Brooks, part 2.

VIDEO: OBAMA HITTING A GOLF BALL

Obama's golf swing (below) rivals his baseball throwing skill.   (HT: Drudge)  I'm not criticizing, just making an objective observation.  I guess basketball is his sport.  No others?

SUPER-ORGANIZED HOMOSEXUALS - - AGENDA AND TALKING POINTS OF GLAA

What is "GLAA" you ask?  It's the "Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance" of Washington, D.C.  Homosexuals seek to remake America.  That's an indisputable fact.  They are organized to the hilt and never rest satisfied with the "progress" already gained.  As the Family Research Council points out:

Washington, D.C., where same-sex "marriage" is legal (for now), the gay and lesbian crowd is just getting warmed up. Apparently, their updated political agenda spans everything from classroom infiltration to legalizing prostitution. During this week's "pride parade,"  newspapers snapped photos of some influential marchers. Among them, D.C.'s public school chancellor Michelle Rhee was carrying a sign that hinted of things to come in the Capital city's schools: "DCPS Supports All Kids and All Families," it read. Other pockets of the community are loudly proclaiming that same-sex "marriage" isn't the end of the road, but the beginning of a shocking new agenda. "I don't believe in unilateral political disarmament," said one resident.

The battle now heads to the ballot booth, and the roadmap there can be found in the Left's "Agenda 2010: An Election-Year Guide to Local LGBT Issues in Washington, D.C." Local groups will try to elect more homosexuals to places of power, push in-school gay-straight alliances, support D.C. sex-oriented businesses, defend adult entertainment, grant special perks to cross-dressing prisoners, force same-sex adoption, and legalize sex trafficking. Lots of people in this country mistakenly believe that this community will be satisfied when it redefines marriage. That's not the case. Homosexuals and transgenders won't be happy until they sever every moral underpinning in America. This has never been about "acceptance" or "equality" but about a devastating strategy meant to destroy innocence, the family, local communities, public health, and parental authority.

ANDREW C. McARTHY: ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT TURKEY

From the NRO/YouTube intro:

Andy McCarthy, author of The Grand Jihad, says Turkey has become an Islamist state. He describes how Ataturk engineered Turkey to be a secular Islamic state. And he describes how the promise of EU membership and the democratic process have allowed the Islamists to takeover Turkey. Andy also says that the US-Turkey alliance is coming to an end.

ELENA KAGAN: 'The Bork Hearings Were the Best Thing that Ever Happened to Constitutional Democracy'

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan expressed that opinion in the video below (HT: Jonah Goldberg).  I watched the Bork confirmation hearings on television.  In fact, I videotaped them.  I considered Senator Kennedy's behavior utterly shameful and embarrassing.  And so with other Democratic senators.  If Elena Kagen thinks the hearings "the best thing that ever happened to Constitutional Democracy," she doesn't belong anywhere near the Supreme Court.  

OBAMA: AN AMERICAN VERSION OF VLADIMIR PUTIN?

So say the editors of the Economist.  Michael Barone's article on Obama's "thuggery" concludes:

"If he [Obama] sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so," write the editors of the Economist, who then suggest that markets see Obama as "an American version of Vladimir Putin." Except that Putin is an effective thug.   [more...]

HT: Drudge

STORM CLOUDS GATHERING OVER ISRAEL

The extraordinary Caroline Glick ponders Israel's precarious existence after the Mavi Marmara incident. The future looks scary and war-filled.

Israel is endangered today as it has never been before. The Turkish-Hamas flotilla two weeks ago precipitated a number of dangerous developments. . . Since the Navy's lethal takeover of the "Mavi Marmara", Israel has been stood before an international diplomatic firing squad led by the UN and Europe and supported by the Obama administration . . .  In the very near future, Israel will face off against Iranian, Lebanese, and Turkish ships  . . .  The "Mavi Marmara" showed Iran and its allies that they can win strategic victories against Israel by giving the IDF no option other than using force against them. This means that Israel can bank on the prospect that all the ships they are dispatching will be populated by suicide protesters. Indeed the Iranians have openly admitted this . . .

Glick foresees suicide squads used to move the world to war against Israel.

The Lebanese ships are being organized by Hizbullah-affiliated individuals and the Turkish ships are being organized by the IHH terror group that organized the "Mavi Marmara." Hizbullah's penchant for dispatching suicide squads is of course well known. And the IHH showed its devotion to suicide protests on the Mavi Marmara. So it is fairly clear that the passengers aboard the ships from both countries intend to force the IDF to kill them. 

The intensification of the suicide protest campaign against Israel is dangerous for two reasons. First, it is a model that can be and in all likelihood will be replicated on air and land and it can be replicated anywhere. Israel can and should expect mobs of suicide protesters marching on Gaza to force Israel to surrender control over its borders. Israel can expect mobs of suicide protesters marching on Israeli embassies and other government installations around the world in an attempt to increase its diplomatic isolations. 

In the air, Israel can expect charter flights to take off from airports around the world with a few dozen kamikaze protesters who will force the IAF to shoot them down as they approach Israeli airspace. 

There's much more.  If we learn nothing else from this article, it is that the pressure on Israel will only dramatically increase, and that war looms more and more likely.  Obama's abandonment of Israel only escalates the tensions.

WHAT'S THE STORY ON "EMERGENT ADULTS?"

Christianity Today offered an interesting interview with Christian Smith, author of Souls in Transition: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults.   Emergent Adults refers primarily to the 18 to 23 crowd.   I was put on to the book by Alan Jacobs.   Excerpt from the CT interview:

What are the traits of religious American teenagers who retain a high faith commitment as emerging adults?

The most important factor is parents. For better or worse, parents are tremendously important in shaping their children's faith trajectories. That's the story that came out in Soul Searching. It's also the story that comes out here.

Another factor is youth having established devotional lives—that is, praying, reading Scripture—during the teenage years. Those who do so as teenagers are much more likely than those who don't to continue doing so into emerging adulthood. In some cases, having other adults in a congregation who you have relationships with, and who are supportive and provide modeling, also matters.

Some readers are going to be disappointed that going on mission trips doesn't appear to amount to a hill of beans, at least for emerging adults as a whole. For some it's important, but not for most. . .  [more . .]

The excerpt Alan Jacobs provided was somewhat stunning to me:

The majority of those interviewed stated . . . that nobody has any natural or general responsibility or obligation to help other people. . . . Most of those interviewed said that it is nice if people help others, but that nobody has to. Taking care of other people in need is an individual's choice. If you want to do it, good. If not, that's up to you. . . . Even when pressed — What about victims of natural disaster or political oppression? What about helpless people who are not responsible for their poverty or disabilities? What about famines and floods and tsunamis? — No, they replied. If someone wants to help, then good for that person. But nobody has to.

UNDERSTANDING THE LEFTIST MINDSET

Steven den Beste helps us:

To the left, it’s an article of faith that America is too powerful. America is too influential. America is too rich. America consumes too much. Americans as a group are too independent, too rowdy, not controlled enough. Americans are too nationalistic, too unwilling to give up part or all of their sovereignty to “emerging world governance”.

America needs to be humbled. Americans need to have their confidence shattered, to become introspective, to consider (finally, at long last) “why they hate us”. America needs to bow to world opinion.

All of this is necessary in order to advance the single paramount social good: equality (of outcome). Equality is more important than anything else. In particulaar, equality is more important than freedom. Creating a state of equality, and maintaining it, will require government control and if individual liberty opposes that, then liberty shall have to give way.

With Obama, the left finally has a president who is in tune with this philosophy.

Investor’s Business Daily writes about “Losing ‘The War That Has To Be Won’“.  [more . . .]

WHO IS THE MOST UNPOPULAR MAN IN BRITAIN?

Obama.  Seems so.  So much for "The One's" brilliant foreign policy.  Nile Gardiner writes:

What a difference 18 months and an oil spill makes. In January 2009 Barack Obama was hugely popular on this side of the Atlantic, and could have walked on water in the eyes of the British media, the political elites, and the general public. In June 2010 however he probably qualifies as the most despised US president since Nixon among the British people. . .  [more . . .]

- Victor Davis Hanson writes about "The Great Anglo-American Spat".

- From NRO - Today marks the 70th anniversary of Sir Winston's "finest hour" speech — delivered in the House of Commons in the aftermath of the tenebrous "Miracle at Dunkirk," even as the Nazis marched on Paris.  You can read the whole thing here, and listen to audio here.

OUTRAGEOUS PRO-ABORTION FANATICISM REQUIRES CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTERS TO POST SPECIAL SIGNS

Mark Early writes on "Free Speech and Crisis Pregnancy Centers":

Imagine going to a shoe store—and seeing a large sign on the door announcing, “We don’t sell puppies here.” Or suppose you’re about to board a plane, and spot a sign in the waiting area: “No train service here.” You might think, what in the world?

Or imagine walking into a four-star restaurant, and seeing a sign reading: “The county government recommends that you dine somewhere else.”

Now imagine these nutty signs might be required by law. Believe it or not, in Maryland, lawmakers have ordered signs like these to be posted—but only in front of one business: crisis pregnancy clinics. Signs that announce, not what the clinics offer—but what they don’t offer.

Baltimore and Montgomery counties in Maryland have passed laws forcing crisis pregnancy centers to post signs announcing

"SPENGLER" (DAVID P. GOLDMAN) ANSWERS QUESTIONS ON HOT SPOTS AROUND THE WORLD

If you've not read Spengler before, now is the perfect time to make his acquaintance.  He's right up there with my favorite top journalists.  Brilliant is the word.  Read this column and you'll want to read everything he produces.

TONY BLANKLEY - THE AFGHANISTAN WAR IS A FARCE

I pondered whether I wanted to post this or not since I know brave men have fought and died in this war, and I personally know of men, both Brits and Americans, still over there.  I hope Blankley is wrong.  But if he is right, the sooner we face up to it the better.  On other matters Blankley has written about, he has proven a man of sober judgment.  Here is his article.

OBAMA'S DISASTER OF A DISASTER SPEECH

Ed Morrissey of HotAir writes: (excerpt)

This speech was suited for Day 1 of a catastrophe, not Day 57.  It had no answers at all.  None. . . During the 2008 campaign, we repeatedly criticized Obama’s lack of executive experience, but perhaps even Obama’s critics might be surprised to see how badly Obama has performed in this crisis.  He has nothing left to offer; Obama is running on empty.  In the face of a crisis that has unfolded for almost two full months, Obama chose to talk about wind turbines.  A nation waited to see if a leader would emerge from the White House, and instead it got an absent-minded professor desperate to change the subject.

Even Obama’s supporters have begun to see what his critics have long known: Obama is an empty suit.  His sorry performance last night showed just how little he understands his job, the situation, and the expectations of the American people.  [more . .]

Even the Left didn't like it.  Click through. 

GELLER AND SPENCER: "THE POST-AMERICAN PRESIDENCY: THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S WAR ON AMERICA"

This book looks excellent.  I am impressed by the endorsements (see below).  It will hit the bookstands July 27th.

From Atlas Shrugs:

Order here: The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America

Or get your autographed copy now.

What they are saying............

Review

“Sheer brilliance! Sharp, well-written and to-the-point. The ultimate patriot's handbook. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer lay bare Barack Hussein Obama's radical agenda and how to stop it. No true American's library will be complete without this book.”

--Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Foreign Influence

“This book is a chilling analysis of how the policy of President Barack Obama is chipping away at the very foundation of America's leading role in the world. It exposes his philosophy of near universal 'moral equivalency': a philosophy that is a dead ringer for the cultural relativism that has been poisoning Europe for the past decades. America is the last man standing and it is vital that the people of Europe adopt the attitude of proud American citizens and learn that it is not shameful to be proud of one's heritage. This book is incredibly fascinating and at the same time holds a deeply disturbing message we should all take to heart.”

--Geert Wilders, Dutch MP

“Barack Obama is the most radical individual ever to occupy the White House. This excellent book by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer explains exactly what that means and why its implications are fraught with such dangers for this great Republic.”

--David Horowitz, author of Radical Son

“Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are two of the most incisive analysts of events at home and abroad, and you could not ask for better guides to where 'hope,' 'change' and czars are taking us -- and what Americans can do about it.”

--Mark Steyn, New York Times bestselling author of  America Alone

“In The Post-American Presidency, Pamela Geller shines her laser on President Barack Obama -- his life, his values, his friends and his perceptions of the country he leads. What she reports will disturb not only every American who believes in that America is the Shining City on the Hill and that the American people are what Abraham Lincoln referred to as 'the almost chosen people.' It should also disturb people around the world who recognize that the international system stops working when the American Atlas shirks the burden of its uniqueness.”

--Caroline Glick, author of The Shackled Warrior

“With their characteristic attention to detail, clarity and fearlessness, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer assay the wreckage. The Post-American Presidency is must reading for every concerned American who needs to know why we're in this perilous moment, and where we're headed if we don't take our exceptional country back.”

--Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review legal affairs editor, author of Willful Blindness and Grand Jihad

POLITICALLY CORRECT "PAYPAL"

For awhile Paypal declared Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugs a "hate site" and threatened to deny her service but later reversed itself.  Geller now recommends Gpal as an alternative.  She writes about Paypal's abuse in an article for Human Events: [my emphases]

The little money that my organization Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and the Freedom Defense Initiative (FDI), as well as my website AtlasShrugs.com, generate came close to being cut off Friday when Paypal called all three websites “hate” sites. The leading online payment service said it would close my accounts if I do not act first and remove the Paypal option from each website. After an avalanche of emails from Atlas readers, PayPal reversed itself and said the whole thing had been a mistake; but the implications of the incident for conservatives remain ominous. . .

SIOA is an advocacy group devoted to defending the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience and the equality of rights of all people. Atlas Shrugs is a news site and a political blog. I am not responsible for the bad news in the world. I just report on it.

So for PayPal, defending American values and reporting the news accurately had become “hate.” Truth is the new hate speech. 

DICK MORRIS: OBAMA VS. PRESS FREEDOM

I found this pretty shocking.  (HT: Drudge)

HAYEK'S "ROAD TO SERFDOM" NOW #1 AT AMAZON

- Update 6/28/10 - Russ Roberts explains in today's Wall Street Journal why Friedrich Hayek is making a comeback.

- (Original post) I just checked National Review's Corner blog.  John J. Miller reports:

At this precise moment, The Road to Serfdom, originally published in 1944, is the #1 bestselling book on Amazon.com.

Ah...  would you say Glenn Beck influences book sales?  Miller's report prompted me to seek more information.  I found this at the Hayekcenter.org:

I just got off the phone with Stephanie Hlywak of the U. of Chicago Press and it’s official — the U. of Chicago Press is SOLD OUT of copies of Friedrich Hayek’s classic The Road to Serfdom after selling over 13,000 copies in less than 24 hours, after the broadcast of Glenn Beck’s show on Hayek and his timeless book.

Beck seems to be a one-man educational enterprise.  Good for him!

Update 6/15/10 - Thanks to Mike's comment and link, here's a YouTube video rapping the differences between John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek:

ANDREW C. McCARTHY - MAN WITH A MESSAGE

Andy McCarthy's new book, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, is getting a lot of attention and rightly so.  Here's an excerpt from Diana West's recent column:

Q: Why are Islam and the Left, as you demonstrate in "The Grand Jihad," not such strange bedfellows?

A: "For all their disagreements on matters like women's rights, gay rights and abortion, Islam and the Left are in harmony on big-picture matters: They are authoritarian, totalitarian in the sense of wanting to control all aspects of human existence, virulently anti-capitalist, and regard the individual as existing merely to serve the collective. Consequently, they have the same obstacle in common: our freedom culture - i.e., Western liberalism, U.S. constitutional republicanism, and their foundation, individual liberty. Historically, Islam and the Left ally when there is a common enemy. But I'd stress that what I am talking about here is an alliance, not a merger. I am not claiming, as someone ridiculously suggested to me the day the book came out, that Barack Obama wants to impose Sharia."

McCarthy contends that "our policy-makers obsess over 'one tactic, terrorism' while ignoring terrorism's goal:  Islamization through the implementation of Sharia (Islamic law)."

West asked him to explain.

"From the beginning of my involvement in counterterrorism in the early nineties,  I've been struck by the government's portrayal of terrorists as beasts who kill for no better reason than to kill - as if the fact that they are brutal means that they are insane.  Government does this as part of its narrative that terrorists couldn't possibly be accurately representing a well-grounded interpretation of Islam, and therefore must be `perverting' or `hijacking' Islam, or must be traitors against the `true Islam.'

"There is a logic to terrorism. It is jihad, the purpose of which is to implement, spread, defend or vindicate Sharia, the Muslim legal code. Sharia is deemed in Islamist ideology to be the necessary precondition to Islamicizing a society. Once you realize that, you

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET HISTORY RIGHT?

Mighty important.  According to Burton Folsom, Jr., professor of history at Hillsdale College (and author of New Deal or Raw Deal?), President Obama has a seriously deformed understanding of American history and economics.   This has enormous repercussions and leaves him with a skewed ideological perspective.  Folsom writes:

“What bothers me,” President Obama told the graduating class at the University of Michigan last month, “is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad.”

Folsom reponds:

Only anarchists think all of government is inherently bad. Government has a useful constitutional function in protecting contracts and providing for the national defense. We need a government strong enough to protect our private property.

The problem is when government oversteps its constitutional limits and politicians try to micromanage the economy. That is where President Obama and the Founders disagree. President Obama in his speech defended the government’s interference in railroad building and in the Great Depression. “When we needed a

MICHAEL GERSON - "SPREADING NOTES OF FREEDOM AMONG NORTH KOREANS"

Whenever I read of what North Koreans suffer, I shudder.  I also wonder at the bravery and determination of those who escape, and those who help.  Michael Gerson, writing in the Washington Post, asks the question:

How does a mind -- born into comprehensive tyranny, conditioned for loyalty, fed on lies -- eventually change? What shifts or clicks or breaks?

"I cannot pinpoint one event," says Kim Seung-Min, a former North Korean army officer who defected in the 1990s. "I was very loyal to Kim Jong Il and to the party." His father was a well-known professor and writer; his mother a journalist. But he recalls the leaflet drops from across the border that showed pictures of South Korea. "One image stuck with me. People were wearing all sorts of different clothes. That was remarkable to me."

In such profound isolation, even the possibility of picking your clothes can spark a revolution of the mind.

Gerson goes on to tell of defectors, of Chinese cells on the border helping escapees, and technologies helping to crack the isolation of North Korea.

With strategic options relating to North Korea limited, an information assault on the regime assumes greater urgency. The irreplaceable National Endowment for Democracy supports Free North Korea Radio.  But neither South Korea nor the United States shows much creativity or commitment in applying new information technologies to help the spread of freedom.

News like this remind Christians like me to pray for Koreans and for those devoting themselves to helping.  These are the front-line heroes of our day.  Read the whole article.

TIM PAWLENTY ON JON STEWART'S "THE DAILY SHOW"

To be honest, I hadn't had occasion before to listen in any sustained way to Tim Pawlenty, the Governor of Minnesota, and possible Republican Presidential Candidate in 2012.  Today Ed Morrissey posted three video segments of Pawlenty's appearance on the "Daily Show" last night.

Pawlenty strikes me as a genuinely impressive guy -- in command of facts,  down-to-earth, unruffled, one who laughs naturally, and genuinely likable.  The conversation was limited to domestic affairs.  Click here.   

MELANIE PHILLIPS - "THE WORLD'S DERANGEMENT"

Melanie Phillips, the British writer and columnist, is one of those increasingly rare persons who understands the obtuseness, willful blindness, dark obsession, and hatred of the world against Israel.  She calls it "the  world's derangement." I personally see the blinding hatred towards Israel as demonic in origin and inspiration, and the major story of our time.  Phillips writes:

In the Jerusalem Post, William Shawcross has written a blistering piece about the ‘irrational, obscene hatred’ of Israel now coursing so terrifyingly across both the Islamic and western worlds . . .

What is deeply shocking – and frightening – is that the narrative the world accepts is always that of Israel the evildoer... The hatred that Israel arouses is absurd, even obscene... The Muslim world and the Western Left are in an unholy alliance; they do not want to improve the Jewish state, they want to remove it.

Phillips points out  (my emphases)

The treatment being meted out to Israel is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the treatment meted out to any other nation. Ever. It's not just that the tyrannies of the present are not even reported on, let alone seen as a worthy and legitimate target of protest. Even the great progressive causes of the past, such as the campaign against apartheid South Africa, for example, never provoked such hysterical obsession, let alone such a sustained and frenzied onslaught of lie after distortion after fabrication after blood libel. Just like the Jew-hatred of the past, the characteristics of this victimisation are unique; just like the Jew-hatred of the past, it treats the Jewish people as some kind of cosmic evil; and just like the Jew-hatred of the past, ultimately it simply defies explanation. But it is happening, right now, before our disbelieving eyes; it is quite simply a derangement of the world.

I repeat.  This obsession against Israel can only be explained as demonic and supernaturally inspired.

Phillips quotes an exceptional politician and journalist, Pilar Rahola of Spain, who delivered at the end of last year an impassioned speech supporting Israel.  Such bravery is rare.  But look at the facts related:

C.S. LEWIS - "THREE KINDS OF MEN"

I found the following short essay profound and penetrating.  First published in March, 1943, it comes from Lewis's posthumous collection of essays, Present Concerns.  I came across it on the web at the C.S. Lewis Institute's May "Reflections."  (I took the liberty to subdivide Lewis's first long paragraph into three short ones.)

The first class is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and Nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them.

In the second class are those who acknowledge some other claim upon them—the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society—and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on. Their life is divided, like a soldier’s or a schoolboy’s life, into time “on parade” and “off parade,” “in school” and “out of school.”

But the third class is of those who can say like St. Paul that for them “to live is Christ.” These people have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self and God by the simple

SPELLBOUND - BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT 2010

Incredible talent.  Worth the 5 minutes to watch.  From an e-mail a friend sent me.

OBAMA TELLS GRADUATES: "DON'T MAKE EXCUSES"

Ah...  There's a slight problem here, actually it's more than slight.  Obama's words don't match his deeds. And that's putting it mildly.  It appears Obama has perfected a technique for obliterating any consciousness of personal shortcomings.  It's quite amazing.  Consider Gateway Pundit's post below (a site well worth frequent visits).

President Barack Obama told graduates at Kalamazoo High School yesterday,

“Don’t Make Excuses. Take Responsibility Not Just For Your Successes, But For Your Failures As Well. … It’s The Easiest Thing In The World To Start Looking Around For Someone To Blame.”

Click on photo for Video–

Obviously, his speech writers forgot who they were writing for.
The Republican Senators whipped up this list after the president’s speech:

(Me: The list of Obama's excuses boggles the mind.  After reading the first three examples below, be sure to click through to the second page for many more).

ON AMERICA’S CHALLENGES
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “When I Showed Up After Inauguration, They Had Left A Big Mess On The Floor.  So I Got A Mop, And I Started Cleaning Up Their Mess.” (President Obama, Remarks, Norfolk, VA, 10/27/09)

ON THE ECONOMY
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “By Any Measure, My Administration Inherited A Fiscal Disaster.” (President Obama, Remarks, 3/4/09)

ON DEFICITS
PRESIDENT OBAMA: “Now, If We Had Taken Office In Ordinary Times, I Would Have Liked Nothing More Than To Start Bringing Down The Deficit. But We Took Office Amid A Crisis.” (President Obama, State Of The Union Address, 1/27/10)

THE "C.S. LEWIS BIBLE" TO BE PUBLISHED

Of the making of Bibles there seems no end.  This week I learned (from the Bulletin of the New York C.S.  Lewis Society) that something called the "C.S. Lewis Bible" will be released October 26, 2010.  No, this will not be a Bible of Lewis's own making, but apparently a Bible with "thoughts from Lewis" strewn here and there.  The statement reads,

This New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Bible includes additional readings comprised of selections from Lewis's celebrated spiritual classics, a collection that includes Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed, The Weight of Glory and The Abolition of Man, as well as letters, poetry, and Lewis's less-familiar works.  Each reading, paired alongside relevant passages in the Bible, offers C.S. Lewis as a companion to a reader's daily meditation of scripture.

Me: My first reaction was "oh my goodness, this is going a bit far."  On the other hand, it will be interesting to see what the publishers come up with.

Speaking of C.S. Lewis, readers might enjoy perusing the "Into the Wardrobe," a website where, among other things, one can find a number of online academic papers that look interesting.  The site also has numerous forums and links to various online resources,  including the C.S. Lewis Institute.  There one can access numerous lectures and papers on Christian thought from many sources.  The numerous legacy recordings, in particular, caught my attention.

ARTHUR LAFFER: THE ECONOMY WILL COLLAPSE NEXT YEAR WHEN THE BUSH TAX CUTS EXPIRE

Sobering.  But not rocket science.  Laffer's article appears in the Wall Street Journal.  Excerpt:

. . . Now, if people know tax rates will be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year? They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible. As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be.

Also, the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010. In my view, this shift of income and demand is a major reason that the economy in 2010 has appeared as strong as it has. When we pass the tax boundary of Jan. 1, 2011, my best guess is that the train goes off the tracks and we get our worst nightmare of a severe "double dip" recession.   [more . . .]

Me:  When was the last sensible decision made by this administration?

TIME MAG: CHANGING FACE OF YOUNG EVANGELICALS

Ethic of service and concern advancing in new directions.  Click here.

JAY NORDLINGER HAS A FEW THOUGHTS ON ISRAEL . . .

.. . with which I entirely agreement.  He writes:

One of the things that encourage Israel’s enemies is the idea that the Jewish state is only temporary: that it is just a passing problem, not here to stay. The existence of Israel is conditional at best: Maybe if they behave themselves, we’ll let them stick around for a few more years, until demographics overwhelm them . . .

FORMER U.N. AMBASSADOR JOHN BOLTON ON U.S. FAILURE TO STAND BY ISRAEL

Bolton concludes his analysis:

The harm caused by US weakness on the Gaza blockade issue will reach far beyond the Middle East. Worldwide, America's friends and allies increasingly realize that President Obama won't stand with them in controversial circumstances. Accordingly, those closest to us will calibrate their own interests more carefully to hedge against US weakness, step by step distancing themselves from us.

That will inexorably accelerate the pace of our debilitation -- thus actually further increasing Obama's self-imposed weakness, undermining US positions worldwide.

The really grim news is that we face at least 2½ more years of such Obama policies.

Me: I don't see how Obama's policies can have any other effect, and yes, 2 1/2 years can't go by fast enough. 

THOUSANDS SHOW UP SUNDAY TO PROTEST THE 9/11 MOSQUE

Story here.  Lots of photos.  Pamela Geller:

Robert and I were expecting 500; imagine our wonder when close to 5,000 showed up. This is just the beginning. We are going to sue to designate the Burlington building a war memorial. There is a large piece of an airplane in that building. That is a war memorial. Instead of a mega mosque at ground zero, let's build a 911 war memorial to the victims. The current plan for a 911 museum is several floors underground, like a dungeon. And the mosque plan calls for the mosque to be on the top floor, looking down triumphantly on the burial ground of Ground Zero. 

I don't think so. The Burlington building must be a war memorial, an historic landmark. We will sue to make that happen. We will protest again in September and stage sit-ins in front of the mosque should they try to break ground. Three thousand good and decent Americans did not die in vain.  [more . . .]

Will we see press coverage of this event?  Next to none.  Speaking of press coverage.  British author Melanie Phillips writes of the "Alternative Universe of the Western Left" in which facts mean nothing and commentators' statements are routinely so ill-informed it is embarrassing.

PAUL COPAN VIDEO DISCUSSES EVIL AND SUFFERING IN 18 MINUTES

Video here.  I got this link from Wintery Knight who prizes Copan as one of his favorite Christian apologists.  He especially recommends two books edited by Copan and William Lane Craig:  Passionate Conviction and Contending with Christianity's Critics.

 

TEA PARTY MEMBER STUNS CROWD

(HT: The Right Scoop)

4th verse of the Star Spangled Banner:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

TURKEY FLEXES ITS MUSCLES IN RESPONSE TO THE "POST-AMERICAN" WORLD

- Update - I meant to note that as far as I know, YouTube is fully blocked in Turkey.  Accordingly, nobody there has seen the Israeli IDF videos,  allowing the Turkish government to continue their lies.

- I have posted a good bit about Turkey in recent days, and for solid reasons.  Now Mark Steyn offers a vivid and sad image that needs noting, painful though it be.  Steyn says Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan

looks at the American hyperpower and sees, to all intents, a late Ottoman sultan — pampered, decadent, lounging on its cushions puffing a hookah but unable to rouse itself to impose its will in the world. In that sense, Turkey’s contempt for Israel is also an expression of near total contempt for Washington.

Steyn explains that demographics determines destiny: 

HELEN THOMAS - THE FACE OF LEFTIST ANTI-SEMITISM

- Update 6/7/10 - Helen Thomas resigned today.  Jonah Goldberg isn't shedding any tears.  He refers to her as "slimy" and a person who has been a "nasty piece of work" for decades.  He cites a further example of her character.

- Helen Thomas tells Jews: " Get the hell out of Palestine" and go "home" to Germany and Poland.

TURKISH AID TO GAZA SONG: "WE CON THE WORLD"

- Update 6/12/10 - YouTube took down the video.  It can still be seen here.

- (Original post) This video/song is positively brilliant.  You gotta click the YouTube video below.  You gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta...  (HT: Pamela Geller)  Update:  Caroline Glick, the creator, says: 

This week at Latma – the Hebrew-language media satire website I edit, we decided to do something new. We produced a clip in English. There we feature the Turkish-Hamas “love boat” captain, crew and passengers in a musical explanation of how they con the world.

Caroline Glick's website is worth frequent visits.  Here are the words to "We Con the World":

"DHIMMITUDE" - THE STATUS OF NON-MUSLIMS LIVING UNDER ISLAMIC LAW

The quote below is from Andrew Bostom's review of Andrew C. McCarthy's The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabatage America.  Bostom quotes the late Lebanese legal scholar Antoine Fattal, who as early as 1958 implored the West to awaken to the determined, civilizational threat we face.  

Dhimma (or dhimmitude) ... is one of the results of the jihad or holy war.  Connected with the notion of jihad is the distinction between dar al-harb (territory or "house" of war) and dar al-islam (house of Islam). The latter includes all territories subject to Muslim authority. It is in a state of perpetual war with the dar al-harb. The inhabitants of the dar al-harb are harbis, who are not answerable to the Islamic authority and whose persons and goods are mubah, that is, at the mercy of Believers. However, when Muslims are in a subordinate state, they can negotiate a truce with the harbis lasting no more than ten years, which they are obliged to revoke unilaterally as soon as they regain the upper hand, following the example of the Prophet after Hudaibiyya

Fatal went on to write:

The dhimmi, we might say, is a second-class citizen. If they [the ruling Muslims] tolerate him it is a calculated step, whether because they cherish the hope of converting him or for material reasons, because they force him to

"BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT" FOR REPUBLICAN WOMEN

Seems so.  Click here.  (HT: Drudge)