Twenty solutions to the weighty problem (in more ways than one) of what to do with leftover matzoh—besides the tried and true “slather it with butter and salt and scarf it down.”
And I’ve got a really nice pre-owned car to sell you
That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Then again, it won’t hide the stink of a rotten egg to call it an overly-mature ovum.
But that doesn’t stop the reframing and renaming on the part of those whose mission in life is to make sure no one on earth should ever suffer the slings and arrows of low self-esteem. Continue reading →
Little Brother is watching you
It seems a person can’t say a word these days without someone recording it or writing about it.
For example, the San Francisco fundraiser at which Obama described the bitter clingers of Pennsylvania was meant to be a very private affair, no press allowed. But merely keeping the press out no longer keeps the media out, because we are all media (or potential media) now.
It used to be that candidates could feel safe from prying eyes and ears at these events. They were among friends. Continue reading →
Algebra according to Obama: Ayers = Coburn; Wright = Granny
The Obama/Ayers connection had been floating around the perimeter of the blogosphere for a while. But when it surfaced in the debate two days ago it became bigger news, in part because Obama compounded the problem by making a bizarre equation.
It was a bit like when he compared Reverend Wright and his own grandmother. Only this time it was Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, who was the target of Obama’s attempt at balancing two things that cannot be weighed equally, not on any scale that partakes of logical thought.
In his famous race speech, Obama tried to counter his pastor’s racist remarks by saying he could no more disown him than he could disown his own grandmother, who once admitted to fear of a black man who had accosted her at a bus stop. These things have no equivalence, moral or otherwise. But this obvious fact didn’t seem to occur to Obama, so intent was he on defending his allegiance to Wright.
And the other night he did the same thing in attempting to defend his relationship with Ayers. Continue reading →
It’s not the syntax, stupid—and I’m not misspeaking
Obama continues to come up with creative excuses for his remarks that have come to be known as “Bittergate.”
He now says he “mangled” his words (ouch!) and that it all was a syntax problem.
As a writer, I sympathize. Those dangling participles will get you every time. Continue reading →
Italian food—for thought
Is the Italian election a portent of things to come in our own? The Obamalike candidate defeated by a 71-year-old on the right?
Hmmm.
The Italian political scene and ours are very different, to be sure. But there are also signs that Italy is edging towards a two-bloc system rather than a mishmosh of small shifting coalitions. The center right that Berlusconi heads now also has a Parliamentary majority, and the Communists have lost all legislative representation for the first time since the 1940s.
Berlusconi himself is certainly a controversial figure, a man of the right and a millionaire media tycoon who in his most recent term headed the first Italian government in the last fifty years to fill its allotted five years. Continue reading →
Obama serenades the folks of Pennsylvania: “Doin’ What Comes Naturally”
Obama’s mockery of Hillary as Annie Oakley reminds me that I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for Annie for a long time. One of my favorite childhood songs was “Doin What Comes Naturally” from “Annie Get Your Gun,” which I used to sing aloud as a three-year old clueless to its mild sexual innuendos, to the amusement of the adults around me.
And so I’ve been moved to compose this updated version. I hereby offer it to Barack Obama to warble to the good people of Pennsylvania:
Folks are dumb where you come from,
They ain’t had any learning.
Still they’re bitter as can be
Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally).
Folks like us will always fuss
With schools and books and learning.
Still we condescend with glee,
Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally)
If you really knew how to read or write
You’d vote for Obama cause you’d see the light
You’d no longer cling to your church or guns
And you’d know all’s the fault of the Republicans.
That comes naturally (that comes naturally).
You voters out in Scranton can’t even write my name
But ballots just need “x’s”
And they count ’em just the same.
That gal Hill she tried to swill
A beer and shot of whiskey
That ain’t no epiphany
Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally)
Hillary channels Annie Oakley?
Obama sneered in response to Hillary’s claim to fond memories of being taught to shoot by her father at her grandfather’s cottage (near Scranton, PA, no less!), and of duck-hunting:
Shame on her….She, how she values the second amendment, she’s talking like she is Annie Oakley.
Well, not quite. Continue reading →
The other Taxman
Today is April 15th. This means that, along with millions of others, I’ll be making my way to the copy machine and then on to the post office so that my filled-out tax forms will have the proper postmark.
Ah, paying taxes. What fun! Along with close to 100% of Americans, I hate the process. Continue reading →
They don’t call him “Dhimmi Carter” for nothing, but perhaps they should call him Neville
Jimmy Carter is planning a dialogue with Hamas.
And he’s remarkably unapologetic about it, despite requests from both Washington and Israel to cease and desist:
Former President Carter said he feels “quite at ease” about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel.
Carter seems never to have heard of William Lloyd Garrison’s handy guide to the art of negotiation:
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter…”
Carter’s faith that unrepentant terrorists such as the leaders of Hamas can be persuaded by the tools of reason or pleading, and that any positive responses they might come up with are truthful and not a form of strategic playacting for the gullible, is certainly nothing new. He has been one of Hamas’ biggest Western boosters for quite some time. Continue reading →
Rhetoric unmasked
Dr. Sanity deconstructs (love that word!) the emphasis of the postmodern Left—and its current well-known incarnation, Obama—on rhetoric.
That’s postmodern rhetoric, as in, “[P]ersuasion in the absence of cognition… truth or falsity is not the issue: what matters primarily is the language’s effectiveness.”
Language thus used may sometimes sound casual, but it is hardly that. Dr. Sanity quotes a wonderful piece by Victor Davis Hanson detailing the cleverly Orwellian rhetorical turns of Obama’s latest efforts to detangle his own words by twisting them still further.
Sanity Squad: see you next week
Due to a “bunch of stuff,” (channeling Barack Obama here) on the part of the Sanity Squad members, there will be no podcast this week. We plan to be back next Monday, same time, same station.