Posts
Truth and consequences
Mark Steyn's Passing Parade
March 15, 2013
Following my conversation with Hugh Hewitt on the media's conclave coverage, I thought I'd dust off some similar observations I made at the time of the last change of Pope - the death of John Paul II. The passage about The New York Times is as timely as ever. What follows originally appeared in The Irish Times and The Daily Telegraph, and is adapted and anthologized in my book Mark Steyn's Passing Parade:
"How many divisions has the Pope?" sneered Stalin of Pius XII. Uncle Joe's successors lived long enough to find out. John Paul II's divisions were the Poles who filled the streets to cheer him on his return as pontiff to his homeland in the summer of 1979, and the brave men who founded the Solidarity union 18 months later, and began the chain of events that within a decade swept the Communists from power in Central and Eastern Europe and finally Mother Russia itself. One day we will know the precise combination of Bulgarian Secret Service, East German Stasi and Soviet KGB that lay behind the 1981 assassination attempt on the Holy Father. But you can see why they'd be willing to do it. By then the sclerotic Warsaw Pact understood just how many divisions this Pope had.
...Read more here.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
March 19, 2013
Mary Sanchez
The Kansas City Star
RE: Erratum & Addenda – Further comments on your column yesterday in the Miami Herald on Pope Francis and the quest for “a more just economic system”.
Ms. Sanchez,
As superb as my omelets are they really can’t be reheated.
After rereading both your column and my letter I decided, with great trepidation mind you, to fire up the grill and try to gild one of my world famous lilies.
It was Winston Churchill, and Allah willing, we will see his likes again, who said that taxing your way to prosperity is like standing in a bucket and trying to pick yourself up by the handle. I did not give the great man due credit. Mea culpa.
Your reference to “a more just economic system” is like a batting practice pitch. Letter high, off speed, sliders not allowed, and as big as grapefruit. Sometimes it is too easy to hit. Sometimes you over swing.
I think you, as an ink stained “wise Latina”, know where I am going.
For 53 years we have heard the cries for “a more just economic system” in Cuba. After 53 years of pushing that rock up the hill named “a more just economic system” we know that the problems, apparently insurmountable, are threefold:
1 – Breakfast
2 – Lunch
3 – Dinner
Now, with the death of Hugo Chavez, fellow thug and ladron, the quest for “a more just economic system” is on hold. They have to find another sap who will bankroll them. Since we are now in the 53rd consecutive bad harvest of the “rainbow stew” bush crop the search for “a more just economic system” will be again delayed.
You say that Senator Santorum is “a good Catholic Republican… using his faith as a fig leaf for a libertarian philosophy that grinds the poor”.
Forgive me. I thought I was well read on current events and History. I guess I am not. Further, I think I may have spent the last 5 or 6 decades on one of Jupiter’s lesser moons. Perhaps you could help me.
#1 – With 1900 as the starting point please tell me where and when – country and year – a “good Catholic Republican used his faith as a fig leaf for a libertarian philosophy that ground the poor?
#2 – Which country now has “a good Catholic Republican using his faith as a fig leaf for libertarian philosophy that grinds the poor” in charge?
#3 – Which continent – including Antarctica – has a country run by “a good Catholic Republican who uses his faith as a fig leaf for a libertarian philosophy to better grind the poor”?
#4 - Give up?
#5 – None. Nowhere. No way. No how. Never. Nunca.
Maybe you could tell me which country in Africa has “a good Catholic Republican using his faith as a fig leaf for a libertarian philosophy that grinds the poor”. You can exclude the 5 countries that still countenance slavery. It may take a while to find even “a good Catholic Republican” supply sider. Skip Zimbabwe. That place uses $10,000 bills as Preparation H substitutes. There are rumors, doubtless started by the rabid Republican Right-Wing press, of recipes for a cannibalistic diet for single dads of single moms. Low fat, high protein, no sodium, endless supplies…Don’t tell Mayor Bloomberg about it.
On a more joyous note, if you take a peek at the 2 greatest economic success stories of the past 25 years you find China and India.
45 years ago the Chinese used human excrement to fire up back yard tiny iron smelters. Honest. You could look it up. Whodathunk that today the biggest buyers of First Growth Bordeaux and Lamborghinis would be those wily buggers?
When India ceased exporting surgeons and importing cement plants and stopped using Gandhi as the paradigmatic template of “a more just economic system” the place exploded. It took a while but Kipling was right about those people.
It was as if someone, someone with an enormous sense of irony whether intentional or not, said “Rise up. You have nothing to lose but your chains.”
The more money they make the freer they become. The freer they become the more money they make. Free people with coins in their pocket do not invade their neighbors. Honest. Look it up.
My reference to the Hound should have been clearer. No one ever really leaves the Church. The Hound, the one described by Francis Thompson, is always on the scent. Maybe you can hear him.
Happy Easter!
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Mary Sanchez
The Kansas City Star
RE: Erratum & Addenda – Further comments on your column yesterday in the Miami Herald on Pope Francis and the quest for “a more just economic system”.
Ms. Sanchez,
As superb as my omelets are they really can’t be reheated.
After rereading both your column and my letter I decided, with great trepidation mind you, to fire up the grill and try to gild one of my world famous lilies.
It was Winston Churchill, and Allah willing, we will see his likes again, who said that taxing your way to prosperity is like standing in a bucket and trying to pick yourself up by the handle. I did not give the great man due credit. Mea culpa.
Your reference to “a more just economic system” is like a batting practice pitch. Letter high, off speed, sliders not allowed, and as big as grapefruit. Sometimes it is too easy to hit. Sometimes you over swing.
I think you, as an ink stained “wise Latina”, know where I am going.
For 53 years we have heard the cries for “a more just economic system” in Cuba. After 53 years of pushing that rock up the hill named “a more just economic system” we know that the problems, apparently insurmountable, are threefold:
1 – Breakfast
2 – Lunch
3 – Dinner
Now, with the death of Hugo Chavez, fellow thug and ladron, the quest for “a more just economic system” is on hold. They have to find another sap who will bankroll them. Since we are now in the 53rd consecutive bad harvest of the “rainbow stew” bush crop the search for “a more just economic system” will be again delayed.
You say that Senator Santorum is “a good Catholic Republican… using his faith as a fig leaf for a libertarian philosophy that grinds the poor”.
Forgive me. I thought I was well read on current events and History. I guess I am not. Further, I think I may have spent the last 5 or 6 decades on one of Jupiter’s lesser moons. Perhaps you could help me.
#1 – With 1900 as the starting point please tell me where and when – country and year – a “good Catholic Republican used his faith as a fig leaf for a libertarian philosophy that ground the poor?
#2 – Which country now has “a good Catholic Republican using his faith as a fig leaf for libertarian philosophy that grinds the poor” in charge?
#3 – Which continent – including Antarctica – has a country run by “a good Catholic Republican who uses his faith as a fig leaf for a libertarian philosophy to better grind the poor”?
#4 - Give up?
#5 – None. Nowhere. No way. No how. Never. Nunca.
Maybe you could tell me which country in Africa has “a good Catholic Republican using his faith as a fig leaf for a libertarian philosophy that grinds the poor”. You can exclude the 5 countries that still countenance slavery. It may take a while to find even “a good Catholic Republican” supply sider. Skip Zimbabwe. That place uses $10,000 bills as Preparation H substitutes. There are rumors, doubtless started by the rabid Republican Right-Wing press, of recipes for a cannibalistic diet for single dads of single moms. Low fat, high protein, no sodium, endless supplies…Don’t tell Mayor Bloomberg about it.
On a more joyous note, if you take a peek at the 2 greatest economic success stories of the past 25 years you find China and India.
45 years ago the Chinese used human excrement to fire up back yard tiny iron smelters. Honest. You could look it up. Whodathunk that today the biggest buyers of First Growth Bordeaux and Lamborghinis would be those wily buggers?
When India ceased exporting surgeons and importing cement plants and stopped using Gandhi as the paradigmatic template of “a more just economic system” the place exploded. It took a while but Kipling was right about those people.
It was as if someone, someone with an enormous sense of irony whether intentional or not, said “Rise up. You have nothing to lose but your chains.”
The more money they make the freer they become. The freer they become the more money they make. Free people with coins in their pocket do not invade their neighbors. Honest. Look it up.
My reference to the Hound should have been clearer. No one ever really leaves the Church. The Hound, the one described by Francis Thompson, is always on the scent. Maybe you can hear him.
Happy Easter!
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
March 23, 2013
Rachel Patron
The Sun Sentinel
RE: “A terrible beauty is born”? Was that when it was “slouching to towards Bethlehem” or “Sailing to Byzantium”? How many ways are there to say boob? Let us try and count them?
Ms. Patron,
It’s bad enough that the coven of Sun Sentinel head up their asses, gravity defying, factually challenged, modern American Liberal ink stained wretches – in your case, wenches – hector me about how simple it would be to tax our way to prosperity, how solving poverty will be a breeze once the minimum wage is $38.50 an hour, how Nixon started GlobalCoolingWarmingClimateChangeExtremeWeather after railroading Alger Hiss, why if only Henry Wallace had been elected President it would have been so much different in America, and. alas, why it is still so deuced difficult to get lambs to lie down with those less than irenic lions, but now you have to commit the infamia of insulting Yeats and thinking that no one will notice.
Among the commandments of modern Amer4ican Liberalism so vigorously defended by you and yours at Sun Sentinel World HQ are:
#1 – Abortion, including those in the 4th and 5th trimester, is OK.
#2 – Homosexuality is OK because it is the only 100% fail proof method of birth control.
#3 – Guns of all types, including in Broward County a menacingly extended index finger, are the axes of evil in the modern world, planetary system, universe, and out where the Pioneer Space Probe is peeking.
#4 – Money is good if we can make the poor richer by making the rich poorer, right? That’s based on the hugely successful, much envied Bulgarian model, right. It is the one that Zimbabwe is trying mightily to catch up to.
Since you know nothing of Yeats it is Logical to assume that you know less of Johnson.That’s Samuel Johnson, not Lyndon Johnson. The only poem associated with that Texas poltroon is “Hey, hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?” Catchy, wasn’t it?
Samuel Johnson was thinking of you when he wrote
“SUCH STUPIDITY, SIR, IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN NATURE”
Allah knows that the holy season of Lent allows, indeed encourages, redemption and salvation. Since modern American Liberals always commit the sin of false pride when they believe that the horizon can be reached and that all things are possible if enough good minded, bright people want it, your assignment is to find out who said the following:
“SOCIALISM IS THE SEARCH FOR A SYSTEM THAT IS
SO PERFECT THAT NO ONE WILL HAVE TO BE GOOD.”
Here’s a hint, you dunce. It ain’t Yeats.
Kevin Smith
Rachel Patron
The Sun Sentinel
RE: “A terrible beauty is born”? Was that when it was “slouching to towards Bethlehem” or “Sailing to Byzantium”? How many ways are there to say boob? Let us try and count them?
Ms. Patron,
It’s bad enough that the coven of Sun Sentinel head up their asses, gravity defying, factually challenged, modern American Liberal ink stained wretches – in your case, wenches – hector me about how simple it would be to tax our way to prosperity, how solving poverty will be a breeze once the minimum wage is $38.50 an hour, how Nixon started GlobalCoolingWarmingClimateChangeExtremeWeather after railroading Alger Hiss, why if only Henry Wallace had been elected President it would have been so much different in America, and. alas, why it is still so deuced difficult to get lambs to lie down with those less than irenic lions, but now you have to commit the infamia of insulting Yeats and thinking that no one will notice.
Among the commandments of modern Amer4ican Liberalism so vigorously defended by you and yours at Sun Sentinel World HQ are:
#1 – Abortion, including those in the 4th and 5th trimester, is OK.
#2 – Homosexuality is OK because it is the only 100% fail proof method of birth control.
#3 – Guns of all types, including in Broward County a menacingly extended index finger, are the axes of evil in the modern world, planetary system, universe, and out where the Pioneer Space Probe is peeking.
#4 – Money is good if we can make the poor richer by making the rich poorer, right? That’s based on the hugely successful, much envied Bulgarian model, right. It is the one that Zimbabwe is trying mightily to catch up to.
Since you know nothing of Yeats it is Logical to assume that you know less of Johnson.That’s Samuel Johnson, not Lyndon Johnson. The only poem associated with that Texas poltroon is “Hey, hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?” Catchy, wasn’t it?
Samuel Johnson was thinking of you when he wrote
“SUCH STUPIDITY, SIR, IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN NATURE”
Allah knows that the holy season of Lent allows, indeed encourages, redemption and salvation. Since modern American Liberals always commit the sin of false pride when they believe that the horizon can be reached and that all things are possible if enough good minded, bright people want it, your assignment is to find out who said the following:
“SOCIALISM IS THE SEARCH FOR A SYSTEM THAT IS
SO PERFECT THAT NO ONE WILL HAVE TO BE GOOD.”
Here’s a hint, you dunce. It ain’t Yeats.
Kevin Smith
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
March 17, 2013
Michael Mayo
The Sun Sentinel
RE: My quest for God’s amazing grace in the sacred/holy season of Lent has overridden my desire to poleaxe you for knowing less than nothing about the Constitution as you plainly and proudly state in today’s unlinkable column in the Sun Sentinel.
Mr. Mayo,
It would be unChristian of me, particularly this close to Holy Week, to say you were dumb so I won’t. It is not the same as being the smartest bear in in the zoo or the world’s tallest midget, particularly since I have long regarded you as being one of the smarter citizens of the nether world on modern American Liberalism, but there’s just so much that you don’t know.
You wield your well documented Progressive cudgels for one Chris Brennan who, until recently, was a helmsman for the Fort Lauderdale Water Taxi Company. The reason he was canned was because of a tree growing in Fort Lauderdale. He publicly proclaimed that it should be spared the woodman’s axe.
The problem is that his employer, the Water Taxi Company, is a tenant of the man who wants to cut the tree down.
I quickly add that I am very much in favor of cutting down trees. My reasons are simple: I love the sounds that cellos make. I like baseball bats because they make unique thunk sound when they hit a pitched baseball. I am still trying to master chop sticks. I am never far from my emergency tooth picks. Strangely enough I sometimes get a chill running up my leg when I touch a newspaper.
Brennan’s boss acted in what he decided was his rational self-interest. He fired him. People forget that you really shouldn’t poke the sleeping dog in the eye.
You say it was an “outrage”.
Would you have said it was an “outrage” if he had been fired for saying that abortions should be outlawed?
Would you have said it was an “outrage” if he had been fired for calling for fewer, not more, gun control laws?
Would you have said it was an “outrage” if he had been fired for trying to solicit recruits for a NAMBLA [North American Man Boy Love Association] sleepover?
Did you say it was an “outrage” when Rush Limbaugh was blackballed out of buying a piece of a NFL franchise?
Antigone spoke up while Thomas More was silent. Both were willing to accept the consequences of their actions. Indeed, they, by calling attention to themselves, insisted on their punishment. Why should Brennan be different? Why should you think it an “outrage”? I daresay your “outrages” are eclectically chosen. All “outrages” are equal; some “outrages” are more equal than others. It is easy to go into high dudgeon mode when your favorite color is plaid.
Here comes the hard part.
The First Amendment begins with the majestic words “Congress shall make no law”.
It doesn’t say the “Water Taxi Company shall make no law”.
It absolutely doesn’t say the “Sun Sentinel shall make no law”.
When was the last time you had a columnist, not an op-ed contributor, who said that Affirmative Action was wrong on all levels, that the Minimum Wage laws were the most anti-Black Federal laws passed in the 20th century, that standing in a long line to vote – I stood in line for 1 hour and 47 minutes, on 3 titanium joints I add, November last – is not prima facie proof of racism, that taxing your way to prosperity is as easy as standing in a pail and picking yourself up by the handle, that all the best intentioned public policies, particularly the ones that have never worked, will still leave the horizon beyond both our reach and our grasp?
I think never is the only acceptable answer. In fact, it is the only possible answer.
Would you be “outraged” if I were to call that an “outraqe”?
Don’t worry. I won’t. If I were to I would have to call the next hurricane an “outrage”.
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Michael Mayo
The Sun Sentinel
RE: My quest for God’s amazing grace in the sacred/holy season of Lent has overridden my desire to poleaxe you for knowing less than nothing about the Constitution as you plainly and proudly state in today’s unlinkable column in the Sun Sentinel.
Mr. Mayo,
It would be unChristian of me, particularly this close to Holy Week, to say you were dumb so I won’t. It is not the same as being the smartest bear in in the zoo or the world’s tallest midget, particularly since I have long regarded you as being one of the smarter citizens of the nether world on modern American Liberalism, but there’s just so much that you don’t know.
You wield your well documented Progressive cudgels for one Chris Brennan who, until recently, was a helmsman for the Fort Lauderdale Water Taxi Company. The reason he was canned was because of a tree growing in Fort Lauderdale. He publicly proclaimed that it should be spared the woodman’s axe.
The problem is that his employer, the Water Taxi Company, is a tenant of the man who wants to cut the tree down.
I quickly add that I am very much in favor of cutting down trees. My reasons are simple: I love the sounds that cellos make. I like baseball bats because they make unique thunk sound when they hit a pitched baseball. I am still trying to master chop sticks. I am never far from my emergency tooth picks. Strangely enough I sometimes get a chill running up my leg when I touch a newspaper.
Brennan’s boss acted in what he decided was his rational self-interest. He fired him. People forget that you really shouldn’t poke the sleeping dog in the eye.
You say it was an “outrage”.
Would you have said it was an “outrage” if he had been fired for saying that abortions should be outlawed?
Would you have said it was an “outrage” if he had been fired for calling for fewer, not more, gun control laws?
Would you have said it was an “outrage” if he had been fired for trying to solicit recruits for a NAMBLA [North American Man Boy Love Association] sleepover?
Did you say it was an “outrage” when Rush Limbaugh was blackballed out of buying a piece of a NFL franchise?
Antigone spoke up while Thomas More was silent. Both were willing to accept the consequences of their actions. Indeed, they, by calling attention to themselves, insisted on their punishment. Why should Brennan be different? Why should you think it an “outrage”? I daresay your “outrages” are eclectically chosen. All “outrages” are equal; some “outrages” are more equal than others. It is easy to go into high dudgeon mode when your favorite color is plaid.
Here comes the hard part.
The First Amendment begins with the majestic words “Congress shall make no law”.
It doesn’t say the “Water Taxi Company shall make no law”.
It absolutely doesn’t say the “Sun Sentinel shall make no law”.
When was the last time you had a columnist, not an op-ed contributor, who said that Affirmative Action was wrong on all levels, that the Minimum Wage laws were the most anti-Black Federal laws passed in the 20th century, that standing in a long line to vote – I stood in line for 1 hour and 47 minutes, on 3 titanium joints I add, November last – is not prima facie proof of racism, that taxing your way to prosperity is as easy as standing in a pail and picking yourself up by the handle, that all the best intentioned public policies, particularly the ones that have never worked, will still leave the horizon beyond both our reach and our grasp?
I think never is the only acceptable answer. In fact, it is the only possible answer.
Would you be “outraged” if I were to call that an “outraqe”?
Don’t worry. I won’t. If I were to I would have to call the next hurricane an “outrage”.
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
March 9, 2013
Lisa Huriash
The Sun Sentinel
500 E. Broward Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33312
RE: How many illegal votes were cast? – Some comments on your article about a recall effort in Tamarac being voided because – Whodathunk? – dead people voted in Broward County.
Ms. Huriash,
Let us stipulate that the recent acquittal of Tamarac Commissioner Patte Atkins-Grad, an acquittal based on the increasingly popular “I am a moron” defense, does not rise to the level of O.J. Simpson getting a pass on fileting his wife and her waiter. Still, it raises a stink in the nostrils of honest men that lingers. The more I see the more I realize that Plato was right when he wrote that “there are some professions in which it is impossible to be honorable”.
You write that the recall effort “fell 18 votes short of the required 1,250 registered voters in the district”. Further, you say that “more than 200 signatures were discarded because they weren’t registered or eligible to vote, lived in the wrong district or signed more than once”.
“more than 200” indicates a tally going from 201 to 299. The percentage goes from 16% to 25%.
Despite protestations to the contrary from perpetually outraged modern American Liberals who, like their banshee forebears, scream how dare you even suggest the possibility of voter fraud WOULD NOT LOGIC DICTATE that the same percentages of fraud could exist in other elections?
If I had been born on a farm the lesson of the rooster would not have been lost on me. I was born in Bayonne, N.J. and the annual resurrection of dead Democrats was observed every election day. Honest. You could look it up.
Is it racism per se to suggest that voting should be at least as hard as getting into a hospital or boarding an airline?
Kevin Smith
Lisa Huriash
The Sun Sentinel
500 E. Broward Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33312
RE: How many illegal votes were cast? – Some comments on your article about a recall effort in Tamarac being voided because – Whodathunk? – dead people voted in Broward County.
Ms. Huriash,
Let us stipulate that the recent acquittal of Tamarac Commissioner Patte Atkins-Grad, an acquittal based on the increasingly popular “I am a moron” defense, does not rise to the level of O.J. Simpson getting a pass on fileting his wife and her waiter. Still, it raises a stink in the nostrils of honest men that lingers. The more I see the more I realize that Plato was right when he wrote that “there are some professions in which it is impossible to be honorable”.
You write that the recall effort “fell 18 votes short of the required 1,250 registered voters in the district”. Further, you say that “more than 200 signatures were discarded because they weren’t registered or eligible to vote, lived in the wrong district or signed more than once”.
“more than 200” indicates a tally going from 201 to 299. The percentage goes from 16% to 25%.
Despite protestations to the contrary from perpetually outraged modern American Liberals who, like their banshee forebears, scream how dare you even suggest the possibility of voter fraud WOULD NOT LOGIC DICTATE that the same percentages of fraud could exist in other elections?
If I had been born on a farm the lesson of the rooster would not have been lost on me. I was born in Bayonne, N.J. and the annual resurrection of dead Democrats was observed every election day. Honest. You could look it up.
Is it racism per se to suggest that voting should be at least as hard as getting into a hospital or boarding an airline?
Kevin Smith
March 18, 2013
Mary Sanchez
The Kansas City Star
RE: The Pope and do we slice the pie thinner or make it bigger? “Experience is the only school that some people can learn at” as Burke said and you proved yet again with your column in today’s Miami Herald.
Ms. Sanchez,
Perhaps I am doomed to be a modern day Sisyphus.
I enjoy reading your to Hell with gravity columns particularly when they touch on things as real as your boot. Thus I was a bit surprised when it took you more than half to get to your Sisyphean moment.
In its entirety…
“This is the social question of the moment. How far will
Francis go to press his natural constituency on the
right wing to establish a more just economic system?”
First, the question is so dumb as to merit its own lapidary inscription in the next issue of the Guinness Book of Records. You imply that the road to farting through silk depends on unjustly rich people giving “more” to the undeserving poor. If you believe that you shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery or handling sharp objects. Check your meds. You may be tripling up on Mother’s little helper. Those white rabbits may be gaining on you.
Second, define “just” as in a “more just economic system”. Declarative sentences are always best. Further, in your definition of said system do no tell me what you expect this as yet undefined “system” to do. Who doesn’t want plumb babies? Who doesn’t want to see a contentedly secure senior citizen group? Who doesn’t want to see an expanding middle class? Who doesn’t want to see the undrowning of polar bears, our newest victim group? Who doesn’t want to see solar powered windmills helping to drive gasless cars up the hill? Allah knows I do.
Alas, Allah is in the details.
#! – What system do you propose?
#2 – Has there been a working model anytime, anywhere a working model of such a system?
#3 - If there is could you give me specifics as to time and place?
Modern American Liberals are blessed by the ability to never, ever ever let facts interfere with their arguments.
Here are a few facts that, should you ever become familiar with them, “The Gods of the Copybook Ledgers” will gladly share with you.
A – If a rich man were to “sell all and give to the poor” the only thing guaranteed is that there would be one more poor man.
B – Any system that takes its “Action this day” marching orders from a jackass, however literate and unctuous sounding, who says that we will make the poor richer by making the rich poorer is doomed to failure. Anyone preaching thus should be hunted down by large, snarling vicious hounds and torn to shreds.
If, as you say, “some people cannot live up to Catholic teaching”, the road open to them has been clearly marked by people as disparate as Martin Luther and Henry the 8th. There is a lot to be said for someone who says “I cannot, I will not recant” and then follows it to its Logical conclusion.
If your restaurant has a menu that does not fit your current tastes why do insist that they change it to accommodate you? Why do you insist that blanched tofu be the new signature dish? There are many restaurants in town. Go and find one where you feel comfortable.
“The Church has not been tried and found wanting:
It has been tried and found difficult.”
G. K. Chesterton
The Church no longer consigns heretics to either Gahanna or Avernus. It suggests that you just go. From a spiritual side it is probably easier to get back in that it is to get out.
We are 2 weeks from Easter. Redemption and salvation are there for the taking. The “poor we will have with us always”. If we didn’t you would be out of a job.
Be of good cheer when I tell you that the Hound is always there.
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Mary Sanchez
The Kansas City Star
RE: The Pope and do we slice the pie thinner or make it bigger? “Experience is the only school that some people can learn at” as Burke said and you proved yet again with your column in today’s Miami Herald.
Ms. Sanchez,
Perhaps I am doomed to be a modern day Sisyphus.
I enjoy reading your to Hell with gravity columns particularly when they touch on things as real as your boot. Thus I was a bit surprised when it took you more than half to get to your Sisyphean moment.
In its entirety…
“This is the social question of the moment. How far will
Francis go to press his natural constituency on the
right wing to establish a more just economic system?”
First, the question is so dumb as to merit its own lapidary inscription in the next issue of the Guinness Book of Records. You imply that the road to farting through silk depends on unjustly rich people giving “more” to the undeserving poor. If you believe that you shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery or handling sharp objects. Check your meds. You may be tripling up on Mother’s little helper. Those white rabbits may be gaining on you.
Second, define “just” as in a “more just economic system”. Declarative sentences are always best. Further, in your definition of said system do no tell me what you expect this as yet undefined “system” to do. Who doesn’t want plumb babies? Who doesn’t want to see a contentedly secure senior citizen group? Who doesn’t want to see an expanding middle class? Who doesn’t want to see the undrowning of polar bears, our newest victim group? Who doesn’t want to see solar powered windmills helping to drive gasless cars up the hill? Allah knows I do.
Alas, Allah is in the details.
#! – What system do you propose?
#2 – Has there been a working model anytime, anywhere a working model of such a system?
#3 - If there is could you give me specifics as to time and place?
Modern American Liberals are blessed by the ability to never, ever ever let facts interfere with their arguments.
Here are a few facts that, should you ever become familiar with them, “The Gods of the Copybook Ledgers” will gladly share with you.
A – If a rich man were to “sell all and give to the poor” the only thing guaranteed is that there would be one more poor man.
B – Any system that takes its “Action this day” marching orders from a jackass, however literate and unctuous sounding, who says that we will make the poor richer by making the rich poorer is doomed to failure. Anyone preaching thus should be hunted down by large, snarling vicious hounds and torn to shreds.
If, as you say, “some people cannot live up to Catholic teaching”, the road open to them has been clearly marked by people as disparate as Martin Luther and Henry the 8th. There is a lot to be said for someone who says “I cannot, I will not recant” and then follows it to its Logical conclusion.
If your restaurant has a menu that does not fit your current tastes why do insist that they change it to accommodate you? Why do you insist that blanched tofu be the new signature dish? There are many restaurants in town. Go and find one where you feel comfortable.
“The Church has not been tried and found wanting:
It has been tried and found difficult.”
G. K. Chesterton
The Church no longer consigns heretics to either Gahanna or Avernus. It suggests that you just go. From a spiritual side it is probably easier to get back in that it is to get out.
We are 2 weeks from Easter. Redemption and salvation are there for the taking. The “poor we will have with us always”. If we didn’t you would be out of a job.
Be of good cheer when I tell you that the Hound is always there.
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Sunday, March 17, 2013
March 17, 2013
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel
RE: Habemus papam, 1978, and the Bush family – Some comments on your perpetually angst filled column on if you think things are bad now just wait.
My dear Professor,
Ave Papam Frankie!
The new Pope’s first outreach program is to grant Catholics one indulgence in the holy season of Lent. [ Who says I ain’t a multiculturalist? I have learned from our irenic Muslim brothers that anything that has anything to do with my religion will henceforth be either holy and/or sacred. Who knew that bingo was sacred? I didn’t. I do now. Next year’s all Catholic Big East basketball league will be holy. Allah damn it! Those WOGS are on to something, aren’t they? And there is no need to call them filthy WOGs. They are such per se.].
I will use my indulgence to break a vow to refrain from using you as the paradigmatic template for mush brained but meaner than cat shit modern American Liberals during the holy and sacred season of Lent. As such, you were always there for piñata poleaxing practice for me.
You mentioned in your Friday column that, should the evils of representative Democracy prevail and give you elected officials who don’t think that Midnight Basketball is good public policy, you wish to be transported back to the glory years of 1978.
1978
The Glory Years
JIMMY CARTER
The desire for a clean conscience in the holy/sacred season of Lent demands that I list 3 good things that he did.
#1 – He did not get to nominate any Supreme Court Justices.
#2 – He was so Homerically bad that he made it easy for the Great Reagan to take over and save the world from the Russkies.
#3 – He helped his brother, Billy Clyde, get a job with Muammar Khadafi.
If it were a football game I would be penalized for piling on if I mentioned that, in addition to not being able to find his ass using both his hands, he was so inept that he couldn’t get 5 helicopters to work. 16.5% T bills and 18.5% mortgages. It may have been the other way around. If you remember let me know.
If he had become Superintendent of the Sea Shore, once he found that he could not control the tides, he would have to buy sand.
On the other hand I can see you being repeatedly ravaged and ravished by a killer rabbit. There would be a line of Brer Rabbits and Peter Cottontails lined up far beyond the briar patch waiting to get their ears wrapped around you.
I search, vainly, for a synonym for putz.
But then came Sunday.
In case you’ve forgotten, Bills of Attainder are specifically forbidden by the Constitution. Because of that the sins of the father, real or imagined, cannot be visited upon the son[s]
The thought of another Bush puts your knickers in such a knot that should you require an industrial strength stool softener it would be wise not to stand close to your ears. Wearing a Haz-Mat suit would be prudent.
A quick trip down memory lane may be in order.
John Adams is most remembered for the Alien and Sedition Act and being involved in the 2nd dirtiest political campaign in American History. His son, JQ Adams, is most remembered for being involved in the dirtiest political campaign in American History.
Which brings us to the Kennedys, the Mother Lode of American dynasties.
Papa Joe, a philandering, stock swindling, boot-legger, who didn’t much like Jews. That makes it is easy to understand why he was a Hitler fan. Honest. You could look it up.
The first thing John Fitzgerald K did was to give his brother, Robert Francis K, a job. He made him Attorney General. He told the fawning press that he wanted to “give his kid brother some legal experience”. Before it was OK to “get chills up your leg”, the DC press became priapristically tumescent and learned to wear dark trousers when the President deigned to speak to them lest they embarrass themselves. Every ink stained wretch and wench save for Art Buchwald [The wenches, Sarah McClendon, Nancy Dickerson, Helen Thomas, inter alia. would immediately go into journalistic estrus when he wiggled his little finger at them.] swooned. Kennedy wanted Buchwald’s employer, the New York Herald Tribune, to send him out of the country. Honest. You could look it up.
Doubtless you remember that Bobby’s first job in Washington was as Counsel to Senator McCarthy. No, it wasn’t Gene; it was Joe. Honest. You could look it up.
The first things Bobby did were to wiretap Martin Luther King and try to kill Castro. Honest. You could look it up.
Meanwhile, there was an item since rocketed down the modern American Liberal memory hole. That’s where things go that fall under the category of “eclectic indignation”. It was his tax cuts that still drive the bug-eyed apes who think that “Midnight Basketball” is good public policy and that the way to cure poverty is to raise the minimum wage to $32.50 an hour. They were the largest tax cuts in 40 years. And they worked. Honest. You could look it up.
Jack set a record for Oval Office philandering that stood for almost 30 years. It took President Handsome Billy from Hot Springs, the King of the One-Eyed Trouser Snakes, to break it
Jack decided not to get us into Vietnam by getting us into Vietnam. Had Goldwater been elected whatever the United States did in Vietnam, whatever, go or stay, would have been over by Father’s Day, 1965. 58,000 names would not have been on the wall in DC because the wall would not have been built.
Lard, his Senator brother, had one lasting highlight in his life. He killed Mary Jo Kopechne. His nephew Joe, also a Congressman, only paralyzed one. His son Partick, yet another Congressman, proved that it is very, very good to be President of the Lucky Sperm Club. His niece, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, was so dumb she made cold milk curdle. Honest. You could look it up.
Whatever arguments you can make about the policies of the Bushes, pere et fils et fils, it must be said that they got home for dinner, loved their wives, and raised good children. By “good” children I will use the Same Peckinpah definition: “They were able to enter their father’s house honorably.”
“People need to ask him [Jeb Bush] what he
believes are the proper roles of government.”
Sun Sentinel
Today
You
Funny you should mention that.
3 things leap to mind.
#1 – James Madison spelled out in declarative sentences what government can do.
#2 – George Mason spelled out in declarative sentences what government cannot do.
You will find both, surprisingly for you, in the same document. It is called the Constitution of the United States. It’s been around since 1787. It has been changed 27 times since with 12 of them coming before 1805
Honest. You could look it up.
#3 – This could be the most important of the three. James Madison, the same James Madison as in #1, replied when asked what was the most important trait to look for in a candidate for any public office, “Character. Character is all.”
I estimate it will take 50 Years and multiple yet undiscovered DNA contributors before any Kennedy can be said to possess “good character”. 50 years? That would bring us to 2063.
Since I am as Irish and as Catholic as those poltroons and poltroonessess, and since I am operating under a nihil obstat from Frank the First, I can say these things without fear, either temporal or eternal.
I shall go back to my long silence, said silence ending joyously on Easter Sunday.
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel
RE: Habemus papam, 1978, and the Bush family – Some comments on your perpetually angst filled column on if you think things are bad now just wait.
My dear Professor,
Ave Papam Frankie!
The new Pope’s first outreach program is to grant Catholics one indulgence in the holy season of Lent. [ Who says I ain’t a multiculturalist? I have learned from our irenic Muslim brothers that anything that has anything to do with my religion will henceforth be either holy and/or sacred. Who knew that bingo was sacred? I didn’t. I do now. Next year’s all Catholic Big East basketball league will be holy. Allah damn it! Those WOGS are on to something, aren’t they? And there is no need to call them filthy WOGs. They are such per se.].
I will use my indulgence to break a vow to refrain from using you as the paradigmatic template for mush brained but meaner than cat shit modern American Liberals during the holy and sacred season of Lent. As such, you were always there for piñata poleaxing practice for me.
You mentioned in your Friday column that, should the evils of representative Democracy prevail and give you elected officials who don’t think that Midnight Basketball is good public policy, you wish to be transported back to the glory years of 1978.
1978
The Glory Years
JIMMY CARTER
The desire for a clean conscience in the holy/sacred season of Lent demands that I list 3 good things that he did.
#1 – He did not get to nominate any Supreme Court Justices.
#2 – He was so Homerically bad that he made it easy for the Great Reagan to take over and save the world from the Russkies.
#3 – He helped his brother, Billy Clyde, get a job with Muammar Khadafi.
If it were a football game I would be penalized for piling on if I mentioned that, in addition to not being able to find his ass using both his hands, he was so inept that he couldn’t get 5 helicopters to work. 16.5% T bills and 18.5% mortgages. It may have been the other way around. If you remember let me know.
If he had become Superintendent of the Sea Shore, once he found that he could not control the tides, he would have to buy sand.
On the other hand I can see you being repeatedly ravaged and ravished by a killer rabbit. There would be a line of Brer Rabbits and Peter Cottontails lined up far beyond the briar patch waiting to get their ears wrapped around you.
I search, vainly, for a synonym for putz.
But then came Sunday.
In case you’ve forgotten, Bills of Attainder are specifically forbidden by the Constitution. Because of that the sins of the father, real or imagined, cannot be visited upon the son[s]
The thought of another Bush puts your knickers in such a knot that should you require an industrial strength stool softener it would be wise not to stand close to your ears. Wearing a Haz-Mat suit would be prudent.
A quick trip down memory lane may be in order.
John Adams is most remembered for the Alien and Sedition Act and being involved in the 2nd dirtiest political campaign in American History. His son, JQ Adams, is most remembered for being involved in the dirtiest political campaign in American History.
Which brings us to the Kennedys, the Mother Lode of American dynasties.
Papa Joe, a philandering, stock swindling, boot-legger, who didn’t much like Jews. That makes it is easy to understand why he was a Hitler fan. Honest. You could look it up.
The first thing John Fitzgerald K did was to give his brother, Robert Francis K, a job. He made him Attorney General. He told the fawning press that he wanted to “give his kid brother some legal experience”. Before it was OK to “get chills up your leg”, the DC press became priapristically tumescent and learned to wear dark trousers when the President deigned to speak to them lest they embarrass themselves. Every ink stained wretch and wench save for Art Buchwald [The wenches, Sarah McClendon, Nancy Dickerson, Helen Thomas, inter alia. would immediately go into journalistic estrus when he wiggled his little finger at them.] swooned. Kennedy wanted Buchwald’s employer, the New York Herald Tribune, to send him out of the country. Honest. You could look it up.
Doubtless you remember that Bobby’s first job in Washington was as Counsel to Senator McCarthy. No, it wasn’t Gene; it was Joe. Honest. You could look it up.
The first things Bobby did were to wiretap Martin Luther King and try to kill Castro. Honest. You could look it up.
Meanwhile, there was an item since rocketed down the modern American Liberal memory hole. That’s where things go that fall under the category of “eclectic indignation”. It was his tax cuts that still drive the bug-eyed apes who think that “Midnight Basketball” is good public policy and that the way to cure poverty is to raise the minimum wage to $32.50 an hour. They were the largest tax cuts in 40 years. And they worked. Honest. You could look it up.
Jack set a record for Oval Office philandering that stood for almost 30 years. It took President Handsome Billy from Hot Springs, the King of the One-Eyed Trouser Snakes, to break it
Jack decided not to get us into Vietnam by getting us into Vietnam. Had Goldwater been elected whatever the United States did in Vietnam, whatever, go or stay, would have been over by Father’s Day, 1965. 58,000 names would not have been on the wall in DC because the wall would not have been built.
Lard, his Senator brother, had one lasting highlight in his life. He killed Mary Jo Kopechne. His nephew Joe, also a Congressman, only paralyzed one. His son Partick, yet another Congressman, proved that it is very, very good to be President of the Lucky Sperm Club. His niece, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, was so dumb she made cold milk curdle. Honest. You could look it up.
Whatever arguments you can make about the policies of the Bushes, pere et fils et fils, it must be said that they got home for dinner, loved their wives, and raised good children. By “good” children I will use the Same Peckinpah definition: “They were able to enter their father’s house honorably.”
“People need to ask him [Jeb Bush] what he
believes are the proper roles of government.”
Sun Sentinel
Today
You
Funny you should mention that.
3 things leap to mind.
#1 – James Madison spelled out in declarative sentences what government can do.
#2 – George Mason spelled out in declarative sentences what government cannot do.
You will find both, surprisingly for you, in the same document. It is called the Constitution of the United States. It’s been around since 1787. It has been changed 27 times since with 12 of them coming before 1805
Honest. You could look it up.
#3 – This could be the most important of the three. James Madison, the same James Madison as in #1, replied when asked what was the most important trait to look for in a candidate for any public office, “Character. Character is all.”
I estimate it will take 50 Years and multiple yet undiscovered DNA contributors before any Kennedy can be said to possess “good character”. 50 years? That would bring us to 2063.
Since I am as Irish and as Catholic as those poltroons and poltroonessess, and since I am operating under a nihil obstat from Frank the First, I can say these things without fear, either temporal or eternal.
I shall go back to my long silence, said silence ending joyously on Easter Sunday.
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
March 6, 2013
Michael Putney
The Miami Herald
Mikey!
Just when I thought it was going to be another day of “vainly fighting the old ennui” I came to your column. [I read the Sun Sentinel first]
Just like a Viagra enema!
I think – thought – that Crist is a toad whose favorite color is was – is – plaid. I think he would be the easiest candidate for Scott to beat. It’s always a shame when both can’t lose. But that’s not why I write.
Lower case global warming [your choice] is the reason.
One of my most treasured possessions is a 1971 copy of “The Population Bomb” by Paul Ehrlich, Ph.D. You may remember that he was a regular on the Johnny Carson Show. He came on right after the guy with the snakes and before either Don Rickles or Joan Rivers.
He said over and over that the “End of Days” was near. He said it would be a photo finish between starvation and Global Cooling. The finish line was halftime of the 2000 Rose Bowl, still the Granddaddy of Them All. He also said that the Roman Catholic Church was the main, in fact, the only culprit.
Today, March 6, 2013, finds me alive as are my creidtors, with my A/C on low, and both folliclely and calorically challenged.
As to the good Professor….
IT STILL SOUNDS LIKE BULLSHIT TO ME
Masters of Rhetoric challenge boobish Sophists by denying their major premise.
When I would finish my ever so gentle keelhauling and/or bastinadoing of a GlobalCollingGlobalWarmingClimateChange ohmadahn my wife would say to me, “That’s why people never ask us back”.
Why would anyone be opposed to saving the planet?
Follow the bouncing ball as I count the ways.
A – The earth warms.
B – More land becomes arable
C – More arable land means more protein
D – More protein means smarter people.
E – There was an upward spike in temperature 1200 years ago.
F – The Renaissance – Do you have a problem with that?
G – All those in favor of an Ice Age prepare to sit on my bayonet
H – Stand on the trap door marked “Lunatics”
I – Remove bayonet from rectum and cut off your nose.
J – Hasta la vista, you friggin’ nitwit.
In the glory days of Nixon, when he stopped the draft, introduced wage and price controls, and the EPA I would emerge from my shower and reach for the Right Guard. A quick squirt under each arm followed by a long squirt out the bathroom window. It was the least I could do to join in the fight against the dreaded ozone layer.
The entire climate change argument is based on tautologies on steroids. It makes the Bermuda Triangle folderol seem as precise as the multiplication table or Latin 1 or PI.
President Clinton announced that it was very hot in Washington in August because of Global Warming. Global Warming was then made worse by, you guessed it, hot summer days in Washington “Hot summer days in Washington” Who knew? Why didn’t someone tell me?
Pop quiz – How did Greenland get its name? Don’t know? Send a SASE.
Full disclosure requires me to tell you that my favorite climactic meteorologist is Professor Antonio “Big Red” Vivaldi.
What do cold winters, warm winters, tsunamis, fog, lake effect snow, “What is so rare as a day in June”, a confused Punxatawney Phil, hurricanes happening in Hampshire, :La Nina, El Nino, los Viejos, still born lambs, drowning polar bears, vernal equinoxes, asteroid fly-bys, the “Tea Party”, $9 beer at Dolphins Stadium, les merdes du Quebec, ginormous carbon footprints, Zap Mail, gas guzzling SUVs, coal, frost South of Frostproof, unniceness South of Niceville, summer colds, spring allergies,, autumn leaves, winter blues, Lite beer, plaid shirts and striped ties, les merdes du Quebec – There, I said it again, the perpetually heartbreaking heartbreak of psoriasis, the return of the Mayans and this time “No more Mr. Nice Guy”, the possible return of Alar, AKA the end of life as we know it on this planet, concupiscence, Big Gulps, taxing our way to prosperity, hope and change, and Michelle Obama’s exponentially burgeoning booty have in common?
They were all caused by – drum roll – man.
Having seen an infant die of malaria I would feed all the peregrine falcon eggs to Brer Fox and his extended family. Thanks to Rachel Carson 2,000,000 sub-Saharan Black babies die each year from malaria. DDT would save them. Rich White folk cared more about predatory raptors than they did about living, breathing people
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. AKA Alpha Gump is the world’s biggest horse’s ass
I speak for man, the most endangered species of all.
I end with Faulkner.
“Man will not only endure. He will prevail.”
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Michael Putney
The Miami Herald
Mikey!
Just when I thought it was going to be another day of “vainly fighting the old ennui” I came to your column. [I read the Sun Sentinel first]
Just like a Viagra enema!
I think – thought – that Crist is a toad whose favorite color is was – is – plaid. I think he would be the easiest candidate for Scott to beat. It’s always a shame when both can’t lose. But that’s not why I write.
Lower case global warming [your choice] is the reason.
One of my most treasured possessions is a 1971 copy of “The Population Bomb” by Paul Ehrlich, Ph.D. You may remember that he was a regular on the Johnny Carson Show. He came on right after the guy with the snakes and before either Don Rickles or Joan Rivers.
He said over and over that the “End of Days” was near. He said it would be a photo finish between starvation and Global Cooling. The finish line was halftime of the 2000 Rose Bowl, still the Granddaddy of Them All. He also said that the Roman Catholic Church was the main, in fact, the only culprit.
Today, March 6, 2013, finds me alive as are my creidtors, with my A/C on low, and both folliclely and calorically challenged.
As to the good Professor….
IT STILL SOUNDS LIKE BULLSHIT TO ME
Masters of Rhetoric challenge boobish Sophists by denying their major premise.
When I would finish my ever so gentle keelhauling and/or bastinadoing of a GlobalCollingGlobalWarmingClimateChange ohmadahn my wife would say to me, “That’s why people never ask us back”.
Why would anyone be opposed to saving the planet?
Follow the bouncing ball as I count the ways.
A – The earth warms.
B – More land becomes arable
C – More arable land means more protein
D – More protein means smarter people.
E – There was an upward spike in temperature 1200 years ago.
F – The Renaissance – Do you have a problem with that?
G – All those in favor of an Ice Age prepare to sit on my bayonet
H – Stand on the trap door marked “Lunatics”
I – Remove bayonet from rectum and cut off your nose.
J – Hasta la vista, you friggin’ nitwit.
In the glory days of Nixon, when he stopped the draft, introduced wage and price controls, and the EPA I would emerge from my shower and reach for the Right Guard. A quick squirt under each arm followed by a long squirt out the bathroom window. It was the least I could do to join in the fight against the dreaded ozone layer.
The entire climate change argument is based on tautologies on steroids. It makes the Bermuda Triangle folderol seem as precise as the multiplication table or Latin 1 or PI.
President Clinton announced that it was very hot in Washington in August because of Global Warming. Global Warming was then made worse by, you guessed it, hot summer days in Washington “Hot summer days in Washington” Who knew? Why didn’t someone tell me?
Pop quiz – How did Greenland get its name? Don’t know? Send a SASE.
Full disclosure requires me to tell you that my favorite climactic meteorologist is Professor Antonio “Big Red” Vivaldi.
What do cold winters, warm winters, tsunamis, fog, lake effect snow, “What is so rare as a day in June”, a confused Punxatawney Phil, hurricanes happening in Hampshire, :La Nina, El Nino, los Viejos, still born lambs, drowning polar bears, vernal equinoxes, asteroid fly-bys, the “Tea Party”, $9 beer at Dolphins Stadium, les merdes du Quebec, ginormous carbon footprints, Zap Mail, gas guzzling SUVs, coal, frost South of Frostproof, unniceness South of Niceville, summer colds, spring allergies,, autumn leaves, winter blues, Lite beer, plaid shirts and striped ties, les merdes du Quebec – There, I said it again, the perpetually heartbreaking heartbreak of psoriasis, the return of the Mayans and this time “No more Mr. Nice Guy”, the possible return of Alar, AKA the end of life as we know it on this planet, concupiscence, Big Gulps, taxing our way to prosperity, hope and change, and Michelle Obama’s exponentially burgeoning booty have in common?
They were all caused by – drum roll – man.
Having seen an infant die of malaria I would feed all the peregrine falcon eggs to Brer Fox and his extended family. Thanks to Rachel Carson 2,000,000 sub-Saharan Black babies die each year from malaria. DDT would save them. Rich White folk cared more about predatory raptors than they did about living, breathing people
Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. AKA Alpha Gump is the world’s biggest horse’s ass
I speak for man, the most endangered species of all.
I end with Faulkner.
“Man will not only endure. He will prevail.”
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
March 3, 2013
Congressman James Clyburn
130 W .Main Street
Kingtree, SC 29556
RE: White pots and Black kettles
Mr. Clyburn,
If, as you supposedly said, Justice Scalia is “white and proud”, and I know that you didn’t mean that as a compliment, could you tell me the difference between what you said about Scalia and what James Brown said about himself? If memory serves he was “black and proud”.
Do you have a position on either “yellow and proud” or “red and proud”?
Kevin Smith
Congressman James Clyburn
130 W .Main Street
Kingtree, SC 29556
RE: White pots and Black kettles
Mr. Clyburn,
If, as you supposedly said, Justice Scalia is “white and proud”, and I know that you didn’t mean that as a compliment, could you tell me the difference between what you said about Scalia and what James Brown said about himself? If memory serves he was “black and proud”.
Do you have a position on either “yellow and proud” or “red and proud”?
Kevin Smith
Saturday, March 2, 2013
March 2, 2013
Douglas C. Lyons
The Sun Sentinel
RE: Oliver Cromwell, a still relevant DWEM tradition, and trying to avoid “R”, today’s most infamous Scarlet Letter, the branding of which can never be undone. – Some comments on your column in today’s Sun Sentinel. I add, somewhat gratuitously, that your publishing on this, the infamous first day of Sequestration, is worthy of Pulitzer attention. If not Joseph, certainly Lily.
Mr. Lyons,
Oliver Cromwell, the author of a not quite big league Holocaust – Can Holocaust be quantified? – in the country of my forebears, said to a non-complying Parliament, “I beseech you in the bowels to Christ to consider that you may be wrong”.
The “still relevant DWEM tradition” that I refer to is the presumption of innocence. It is a gift of Natural Law that we receive at birth. It comes from beyond the stars. Does it cover George Zimmerman or does its comforting aegis stop with O.J. Simpson?
[As a journalist, do you think the New York Times’ characterization of George Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” is –A- fair reportage or –B- race baiting cum pandering a la the Duke University lacrosse team, all of whom were melanin challenged and, as such, presumptively guilty Republican racist rapists?]
You exhibition of the genetic dispositions of a dedicated modern American Liberal is invoountary. Absent any concern for, or even awareness of, the permanent things, you say that the law, any law, is bad if it does not advance the Progressive policy du jour.
Modern American Liberals proclaim that they don’t want to get into any discussion between a physician and his patient, excepting one where the MD gets to ask if the patient is packing. Will he get a bonus Medicaid/Medicare payment if he tells who is carrying a hog leg?
You also say that “state law prohibits local government from creating laws regulating fire arms”.
I hate [not really] to be the one who breaks this to you but state laws and its Big Brother, Federal laws, “prohibit[s] local government from creating laws” regulating a lot of things
Fort Lauderdale cannot have its own rules governing contracts.
Palm Beach cannot lower the Florida sales tax within its borders.
Miami cannot prohibit a road sign saying that Obama is both a horse’s ass and a pompous fart and Biden is a moron.
And while ink-stained wretches can convict a perpetrator – “alleged” of course – because of the race of the victim or said perpetrator – “alleged”, of course – it does so at a great disservice to the common weal of the body politic.
Should a silver tongued advocate, say Moishe Gonzales, AKA “Werewolf”, convince a la Johnny Cochrane, 12 of George Zimmerman’s peers that he did not do it will Trayvon Martin’s extended family take to the streets and exercise their right to, as Congresswoman Maxine Waters describes it, “alternative shopping”?
Are the PC word police heating up the dreaded “R” branding iron for me?
Let me know.
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
Douglas C. Lyons
The Sun Sentinel
RE: Oliver Cromwell, a still relevant DWEM tradition, and trying to avoid “R”, today’s most infamous Scarlet Letter, the branding of which can never be undone. – Some comments on your column in today’s Sun Sentinel. I add, somewhat gratuitously, that your publishing on this, the infamous first day of Sequestration, is worthy of Pulitzer attention. If not Joseph, certainly Lily.
Mr. Lyons,
Oliver Cromwell, the author of a not quite big league Holocaust – Can Holocaust be quantified? – in the country of my forebears, said to a non-complying Parliament, “I beseech you in the bowels to Christ to consider that you may be wrong”.
The “still relevant DWEM tradition” that I refer to is the presumption of innocence. It is a gift of Natural Law that we receive at birth. It comes from beyond the stars. Does it cover George Zimmerman or does its comforting aegis stop with O.J. Simpson?
[As a journalist, do you think the New York Times’ characterization of George Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” is –A- fair reportage or –B- race baiting cum pandering a la the Duke University lacrosse team, all of whom were melanin challenged and, as such, presumptively guilty Republican racist rapists?]
You exhibition of the genetic dispositions of a dedicated modern American Liberal is invoountary. Absent any concern for, or even awareness of, the permanent things, you say that the law, any law, is bad if it does not advance the Progressive policy du jour.
Modern American Liberals proclaim that they don’t want to get into any discussion between a physician and his patient, excepting one where the MD gets to ask if the patient is packing. Will he get a bonus Medicaid/Medicare payment if he tells who is carrying a hog leg?
You also say that “state law prohibits local government from creating laws regulating fire arms”.
I hate [not really] to be the one who breaks this to you but state laws and its Big Brother, Federal laws, “prohibit[s] local government from creating laws” regulating a lot of things
Fort Lauderdale cannot have its own rules governing contracts.
Palm Beach cannot lower the Florida sales tax within its borders.
Miami cannot prohibit a road sign saying that Obama is both a horse’s ass and a pompous fart and Biden is a moron.
And while ink-stained wretches can convict a perpetrator – “alleged” of course – because of the race of the victim or said perpetrator – “alleged”, of course – it does so at a great disservice to the common weal of the body politic.
Should a silver tongued advocate, say Moishe Gonzales, AKA “Werewolf”, convince a la Johnny Cochrane, 12 of George Zimmerman’s peers that he did not do it will Trayvon Martin’s extended family take to the streets and exercise their right to, as Congresswoman Maxine Waters describes it, “alternative shopping”?
Are the PC word police heating up the dreaded “R” branding iron for me?
Let me know.
KEVIN SMITH
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
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