Something dark is in the air.  This morning there is a review of a new play dealing with middle class parents who decide to sell their children in order to recapture the good life that existed before parental obligations and disappointments kicked in.  If you think this is harmless fantasy, consider today’s Daily News story of a 45 year old partner in a prestigious law firm who threw her two daughters out of the car because she couldn’t stand their bickering.  The older one managed to climb back in but the seven year old wandered around Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains , crying until someone bought her an ice cream cone and facilitated her reunion with her mother.  The alternative ending to accepting sweets from strangers is frightening to contemplate.  Dr. Mazaltov Borukhova received a sentence of life in prison with no parole for the crime of hiring her cousin to kill her ex-husband.  The motive was to regain custody of her six year old daughter who has been rendered fatherless and motherless as well.  Another father in a close knit family killed his wife, two daughters and himself for inexplicable reasons;  one neighbor surmised that he was depressed over his mother’s death but so far, this is just conjecture.  And then there is the model 22 year old, engaged medical student, son of a successful dentist and product of a fine middle class upbringing who turns out to be a serial cyber-stalker who has robbed several women and killed one, as far as we know.  The law partner, the doctor, the church-going family man who always provided, and the  medical student are examples of people functioning at the highest levels of competence and expectation.  What went so terribly wrong?

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The Iraqi government says a sudden spike in the number of weddings is due to a relatively long period of calm.  Because nothing gets a guy prepared for marriage like long stretches of inactivity.

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A California man has been arrested for decapitating a horse.  In a related story, Johnny Fontaine will star in that new war picture.

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This past weekend, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that there will be no investigations or prosecutions of anyone involved with the enhanced interrogation techniques used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zebaydah, or Ramzi Binalshibh.  He said that the Obama White House had determined that while the techniques were “torture,” those who drafted the legal opinions about their use and those who carried them out should be immune from prosecution.

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This defies all rational thinking. Never in our nation’s history has one administration demonstrated such animus to a preceding one. Yes, Thomas Jefferson, for example, took the national on an entirely different path than his predecessor, John Adams, but as far as I am aware, there was never an effort to prosecute anyone in the Adams administration or Adams himself (which is the logical extension of what Obama is suggesting).

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This item is from last August, but I simply haven’t had a chance to get to it until now. The “Americans for Bosnia” blog was caught off-guard by the reaction of Balkan Muslims to the controversial book about Muhammad’s eight year-old wife Aisha:

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Maybe one day a leading Muslim cleric will write a similar book. Who know? Greater miracles have happened.

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(First published in the Vallejo Times-Herald) 

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Most of the media discussion about piracy in the Gulf of Aden has drifted understandably towards the sensational part of the story: how are the Pirates able to roam the Ocean? Is paying them ransom a better option than to engage them militarily? Last but not least, will a military intervention against the Pirates worsen the situation; will it lead to a massive escalation in Somalia and a Vietnam like quagmire for many years to come?

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The problem with most liberals is that they are not liberal when it comes to tolerating opposing views from their own. Their definition of, “politically correct” is when it is in accordance with their politics. If not, they are outraged and in attack mode. This leads one to observe that if we ever had a totalitarian state it would emanate from the left and not the right.

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In boycotting the second United Nations Conference Against Racism (dubbed “Durban II”), being held today in Geneva, Switzerland, President Barack Obama has shown leadership in opposing anti-Semitism.

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President Obama says reaching out to our enemies makes sure the U.S. is a leader on democracy and not just a lecturer.  In a related story, Timothy Geithner will not be giving any speeches about paying your taxes.

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In his weekly radio address, President Obama promised to examine “every dollar of government spending,” including entitlements. Can he be serious about that promise?

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(First published in the Vallejo Times-Herald) 

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Well, in the NYT article carrying the unpromising title, Capitalism After the Fall, I discovered that Obama shares my conclusion that the US cannot continue to recklessly borrow in order to continue to consume a large portion of what the world produces. America may be a consumer nation but the recent geometric increase in global economic production has far outstripped its ability to consume especially in an era of high energy costs. Indeed, that conclusion is supposed to undergird Obama’s “new foundation” program. If so, I could not be more delighted. Obama said:

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The Spanish attorney general will recommend against investigating torture allegations directed at senior Bush administration officials. Spanish judge Baltazar Gazon had proposed just such an investigation; the attorney general said, “if one is dealing with a crime of mistreatment of prisoners of war, the complaint should go against those who physically carried it out.” (Thanks to CNS News.)

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Interesting story today on how Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal supposedly rebuked former Vice President Dick Cheney for asserting the U.S. is less safe due to some of President Obama’s decisions.

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Leave aside the smearing of people who believe in federalism, border security, and the protection of the unborn. Perhaps the worst part of the DHS “extremism” report is its sheer incompetence. Several times, for instance, it says that extremists are exploiting the “historical election” of an African-American president. Historical means “relating to the past.” Apparently, the authors meant to call the election “historic.”

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A less than enamored Sarkozy, acknowledged that Obama has a “subtle mind” and is “very intelligent, very charismatic.” That may explain the reason he gets away with repeatedly denigrating America under the guise of “self criticism” and Bush “bashing” when similar sentiments discredited his less subtle mentor, Jeremiah Wright. For Obama, like Rev. Wright (though without religious justification), his individual interpretation of global (if not cosmic) “fairness” first and the country second. According to his notion of “fairness,” the US has been “unfairly” rich and powerful and he has been elected to “change” her by clipping her wings. Pretending that he is only ameliorating the excesses of the “Bush administration” enables him to America strategically and economically weaker and meeker with less damage to his popularity than could have been expected.

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Strange Fruit, a poem written by Abel Meeropol and immortalized in song by Billie Holiday bears renewed resonance with the news that saplings from the tree outside Anne Frank’s secret annex will be planted in ten locations across the United States. By changing just a few words, its lyrics apply to six million Jews as well as African Americans:

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Next, we saw saw the porn industry’s power through DVD technology. Variety magazine reported 2 years ago that just as the porn industry re-shaped the internet, it made the change to DVD’s move much faster. With the adult video industry releasing 10,000 new titles per year, its major distributors moved quickly toward DVD-only duplication.

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First the Obama administration sought to convince us that the economic skies were falling. Now, it argues that the recovery sun is just around the corner. If only, as the Washington Post notes, reality had something to do with it.

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Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. says strings attached to an American aid package would make his country seem “submissive” to the U.S.  He’s asked the U.S. to submit a new proposal…and this time to include a “safe word.

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     The John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a division of CUNY, has announced this year’s recipient of its International Leader Award:  Mary Robinson.  Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Robinson served as supervisor of this commission (subsequently re-named the Human Rights Council) from 1997 - 2002. Her tenure included her oversight of the notorious “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance,” better known as the Durban Conference of 2001, in which anti-semitism and anti-Zionism were codified and rampantly promulgated to extremes that rivaled the edicts of Nazi Germany.  On the grounds of the conference, pamphlets were distributed featuring grotesque caricatures of hook-nosed Jews killing Palestinian children.  A poster prominently featured in a Palestinian march stated simply Hitler Should Have Finished The Job and copies of The Protocols of The Elders of Zion were readily available for sale.  The final document of the conference indicted Israel as a racist, apartheid state, guilty of genocide and ethnic cleansing.  Ms.  Robinson eventually indicated that she found the charge of genocide unacceptable yet she presided over the preliminary Asian Regional Conference in Teheran where these concepts were first introduced into the conference agenda. Israel itself was excluded from attendance at that time with no objections fromthe High Commissioner during this planning stage and no attempts to curtail the hideous demonstrations at the conference itself.

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Another week, another list:

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The wife of Captain Phillips says the wondering was the hardest part during her husband’s captivity.  That, and having to throw away all her Johnny Depp movies.

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If you think reactions to President Obama’s arrival on the world stage from the likes of the Russian, Chinese, Iranian, Venezuelan and even European leaders have been lukewarm at best, check out the North Koreans.

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Analyst Michael Rubin offers some historical perspective on Western desires to have better relations with Iran, and Iran’s consistent determination to acquire nuclear capabilities.

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The Obamas are just a day away from introducing their Portuguese Water Dog “Bo” to the public.

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In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Geoffrey Pullum rails against the single most useful writing guide in the English language, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. He deals with the book’s guidelines in the spirit of a village atheist trying to disprove God’s existence by sneering at an ultra-literal reading of the Bible. The byline reveals his motivation: he has a grammar book of his own that he wants to peddle.

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Toby Keith is angry with Ethan Hawke about an article the actor wrote for Rolling Stone.  His main complaint?  Too many 3-syllable words.

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Regardless where you fall on the gay marriage debate, a look at the media strategy the leadership of that community has used is fascinating. Anyone who doesn’t believe that strategy works in the media, need look no farther than the massive shift the gay community has made on network television. Today, the advances in the courthouse haven’t been nearly as successful as the advances in the media. On Feb. 16, the classic daytime drama “All My Children” portrayed popular character Erica Kane (played for 39 years by actress Susan Lucci), as she joyfully watched her TV daughter marry another woman. It was a full soap opera / over-the-top lavish ceremony that ended with the brides kissing. As Megan Basham reported in World Magazine: “While same-sex weddings on television are hardly new (a lesbian ceremony featured heavily in a Friends episode from 1996, for example), the real-life drama surrounding legal challenges to California’s recently passed constitutional amendment against homosexual marriages has made the milestone all the more significant. By tying the episode to Proposition 8, those associated with All My Children have reaffirmed the perception that the entertainment industry is of a single mind on the issue.”

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