I’m a tad uncomfortable with heavy-handed diatribes — like the one posted below — so consider this picture my penance. And what says sorry better than a hick mounting a sheep atop his chopper?
Daily Archives: June 9, 2006
A moderate manifesto
I suppose I’m a moderate, if only because I’m conservative on some issues and liberal on others. But since I don’t subscribe lock step to Columns A or B, I’m dismissed.
Fortunately, I have plenty of company.
Those of us in the "middle" — and that would be the majority — are typically mocked as ideological castrati, but the opposite is true. Instead of marching to a specific drumbeat, we think for ourselves.
We are the majority.
We prefer our county united, not divided. We despise the haters, whether they come at us from the left or right. We think the Ann Coulters and Michael Moores among us are dangerous because neither has the country’s best interests at heart, only their own narrow agendas. Our minds are open because we admit we don’t know everything. No one does.
We don’t relish battles with our fellow Americans. We want intelligent debate, not childish mudslinging.
We are the majority.
And it’s well past time we reclaim the national conversation, for it has been hijacked by the kooks. Just this week we’ve seen Coulter mock 9/11 widows and liberal congressman Pete Stark suggest the killing of Al-Zarqawi was politically motivated. If you adhere to either belief, you are the minority, and you are dangerous.
We are the majority, and we’ve had enough.
We believe we live in a superior, but flawed, country. We don’t want to tear it down … we want to make it better, and we want to bring everyone along (although we’d like to lock the Hannitys and Frankens among us in the closet).
We find strength in consensus. Compromise is not a dirty word. Stand on principle, yes, but agree to disagree, and move on.
We’re sick of the immature, mean-spirited rhetoric. We’ve had enough of the legions of mini-llectuals who dominate the airwaves and bestseller lists. Time for us to demand their megaphone, and never give it back.
It’s become urgent that we — the majority — get engaged, because the minority is cynically ripping us apart.
Annoying cliche of the week
Speak Truth to Power
What exactly does it mean? Hell if I know, but it’s become the liberal catchphrase du jour, particularly among those who desperately long to sound like a black minister.
Apocalypse now?
Nature sure is acting strangely these days.
As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.
A local farmer clicked this stunning pic:
Noted and quoted
– auhor James Branch Cabell
Stupidity loves company …
Says the ugly American. It seems we’re not the only ones blinded by popularity —
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has been named the greatest living British writer in a magazine poll.
Rowling topped the poll for The Book Magazine, receiving nearly three times as many votes as second-place author, fantasy writer Terry Pratchett.
The pair were followed by previous Booker Prize winners Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Kazuo Ishiguro.
I have a dream … for a price
More propheteering from the King family. Tragic that such historical riches will end up in private hands —
The collection, to be auctioned 38 years after the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner’s assassination, will be sold in a single lot and is expected to fetch $15 million to $30 million, Sotheby’s said. …
The collection includes an early draft of his historic “I Have a Dream” speech — four typed pages with handwritten notes — and his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Also included is a telegram inviting King to President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of his crowning achievements as a leader of the civil rights movement. The telegram advised him to “bring your telegram as it will be your admission card.”
King won the Nobel Prize at age of 35. In a draft handwritten on yellow lined paper, he prepares to accept an award in recognition of “the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression.”
Especially poignant in light of his own murder less than five years later are King’s remarks on the assassination of President John Kennedy. He quotes Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and says: “The great question today is ‘What killed Kennedy?’ He speaks to each of us in his death. He is not dead.”
Sotheby’s noted in its announcement: “Thus, on one piece of paper are linked three great martyrs of American history.”
It would be nice to see these artifacts in Atlanta’s King Center, which stands a most unfulfilling tribute to the 20th Century’s greatest American. Outside of the martyr’s crypt, there’s barely anything of historical signifigance to be found, and the center’s history has been marred by internal family disputes over its (mis)management.
Now that their mother has passed, the King scions have seemingly lost all discretion.
“In the wake of Mrs. King’s passing the Estate believes that it must resolve the process of finding an appropriate home for The Collection of Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Sotheby’s reported. It said the King estate stipulated that the collection be kept together. …
The collection “is without question the most important American archive of the 20th century in private hands,” said Sotheby’s Vice Chairman David Redden.
Annoying cliche of the week
Speak Truth to Power
What exactly does it mean? Hell if I know, but it’s become the liberal catchphrase du jour, particularly among those who desperately long to sound like a black minister.
Apocalypse now?
Nature sure is acting strangely these days.
As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.
A local farmer clicked this stunning pic:
Noted and quoted
– auhor James Branch Cabell
Stupidity loves company …
Says the ugly American. It seems we’re not the only ones blinded by popularity —
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has been named the greatest living British writer in a magazine poll.
Rowling topped the poll for The Book Magazine, receiving nearly three times as many votes as second-place author, fantasy writer Terry Pratchett.
The pair were followed by previous Booker Prize winners Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie and Kazuo Ishiguro.
I have a dream … for a price
More propheteering from the King family. Tragic that such historical riches will end up in private hands —
The collection, to be auctioned 38 years after the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize winner’s assassination, will be sold in a single lot and is expected to fetch $15 million to $30 million, Sotheby’s said. …
The collection includes an early draft of his historic "I Have a Dream" speech — four typed pages with handwritten notes — and his "Letter from Birmingham Jail."
Also included is a telegram inviting King to President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, one of his crowning achievements as a leader of the civil rights movement. The telegram advised him to "bring your telegram as it will be your admission card."
King won the Nobel Prize at age of 35. In a draft handwritten on yellow lined paper, he prepares to accept an award in recognition of "the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression."
Especially poignant in light of his own murder less than five years later are King’s remarks on the assassination of President John Kennedy. He quotes Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and says: "The great question today is ‘What killed Kennedy?’ He speaks to each of us in his death. He is not dead."
Sotheby’s noted in its announcement: "Thus, on one piece of paper are linked three great martyrs of American history."
It would be nice to see these artifacts in Atlanta’s King Center, which stands a most unfulfilling tribute to the 20th Century’s greatest American. Outside of the martyr’s crypt, there’s barely anything of historical signifigance to be found, and the center’s history has been marred by internal family disputes over its (mis)management.
Now that their mother has passed, the King scions have seemingly lost all discretion.
"In the wake of Mrs. King’s passing the Estate believes that it must resolve the process of finding an appropriate home for The Collection of Martin Luther King, Jr.," Sotheby’s reported. It said the King estate stipulated that the collection be kept together. …
The collection "is without question the most important American archive of the 20th century in private hands," said Sotheby’s Vice Chairman David Redden.
Sweet home
I have a little saying — Alabama exists only to make Georgians feel better about themselves. I’ve had to temper that, however, as one of my best friends hails from there, while my sister resides in Auburn, though I can’t resist the occassional dig at our neighbors to the west.
But not today. Alabamians deserve credit for roundly rejecting the candidacy of former Chief Justice Roy Moore, who received only 33 percent of the vote in the Republican primary against incumbent Gov. Bob Riley. Moore, you may recall, refused to abide by a federal judge’s order that he remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.
Meanwhile, the results in the Democratic primary for attorney general were a bit of a puzzler. One of the candidates, Larry Darby, founder of the Atheist Law Center, received 44 percent of the Democratic vote in God’s country. Sounds downright progressive.
Not exactly. Darby is also a Holocaust denier with white supremacist views. Imagine the dilemma faced by certain voters — “Well, he don’t believe in God but he does hate Jews and coloreds.”
Still, hats off to the state that created George Wallace for rejecting Moore’s demogogery. I can only hope Georgians will follow Alabama’s lead by rejecting former Christian Coalition guru Ralph Reed’s candidacy for lieutenant governor. If we don’t, then I guess I’ll have to retire my snarky maxim.
