Right Side Redux
Latest musings on the right, the wrong and something altogether unrecognizable.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Saturday, February 26, 2005
A Little Sleuthing on Dennis Rader aka BTK
Today, police arrested Dennis Rader as a prime suspect in the infamous BTK murders. I did some Googlin' to see if I could find a picture. I found this old cached page on the Park City, Kansas government site. I'm not sure if that is the guy, but I can't imagine there are very many.
UPDATE: By all accounts this is the guy
Monday, February 14, 2005
My tribute to Dean and the Democrats
Play my special flash game about Dean and folks.
One quick note: the game always ends in the same way:
click here to play
Thursday, February 10, 2005
The Kiss
Bother. The High School adjacent to my neighborhood, the one my kids will attend when they "come of age", has "come of age" in its own rite.
I'm guessing, that the drama teacher at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, VA is a liberal. This is just a guess and it's not at all surprising. My wife and I are thespians (but right-leaning thespians). In my experience, our political leanings are in the minority among the "theater" crowd. And that's just fine.
We have many high school age students that we know who attend the school and who are also in drama. They have invited us to many of their productions. I've come to the conclusion that their productions bite.
Rather, the productions at SB High School are poorly done. In many cases the productions are also wholly inappropriate for these teenagers.
Two years ago they performed "Grease". Unlike the movie, the musical is a bit more explicit about teenage pregnancy and pre-marital sex. As an educational establishment you have some leeway to modify some things and leave other things out. They kept it all in.
This last year they performed "Kiss Me Kate." I'm rather fond of Cole Porter, but anyone will agree that his lyrics are a bit saucy.
Take for instance this great line from the two gangsters in the song "Brush Up Your Shakespeare":
If your goil is a Washington Heights dream
Treat the kid to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
If she then wants an all-by-herself night
Let her rest ev'ry 'leventh or "Twelfth Night"
If because of your heat she gets huffy
Simply play on and "Lay on, Macduffy!"
Brush up your Shakespeare
You get the point.
Here's the short of it. The edgey liberal drama teacher assigned the kids to write their own one-act plays to perform for the school. As I understand it the teacher only reviewed the plays the day before the performance.
Here's a video segment that ran on the local Fox News channel:
click here.
So, a few students put together a show about a gay football player and then a kiss (not a real kiss) at the end.
OK, so you can see the where this is going. After much fussing on our community bulletin board I posted the following, which sums up my thoughts on the matter:
I think anyone who sees the video from the newscast can conclude for
themselves whether it was a "real" kiss or not. I suppose that if
they had "simulated" sex on stage (using a "Hollywood movie trick") we
would let it pass? Let me be clear, I don't mean to equate the two.
The kiss was the culmination of a one-act play that contains (as I
understand it) mature content and situations. The question is: should
the school have allowed the one-act to go on considering the sensitive
nature of its content and the edgy ending.
Mindy is correct, we did stray from the key topic at hand. I
apologize if our tangent (defending and debunking studies etc...)
muddied the issue. So I will restate my case.
1) Parents have the right and schools the obligation to ensure a safe
learning environment for the students
2) Parents have the right and schools the obligation to ensure that
appropriate content is presented to the students
3) The recent incident of the one-act play "Offsides" that deals with
homosexual teenagers and ends in a homosexual kiss (simulated or
otherwise) distracts from the learning environment and (at the very
least) pushes the envelope of "appropriate content"
4) This is the latest in a lengthy string of edgy decisions made by
the drama department over the last 3 years
The only thing that remains to be answered: should this topic be
covered in high school in this manner (a student written play with
little outside direction presented at a school sponsored forum) or
dealt with in a different way (a series of forums for example).
This is not about bigotry but about appropriatness.
Justin
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Classic Right/Left Moment
If you caught the pre-game action on Sunday, you saw the Fox team interview former presidents Bush and Clinton, giving a plug for the Tsunami relief efforts.
The broadcasters nailed each Ex-P down for his prediction on the game. Bush, thought briefly and replied: "Patriots by 7, patriots by one score". Clinton, with his infamous straddle replied "Well, both of those cities voted for me so I'm a little torn." Classic Clinton.
Clinton went on to explain: "Well, if the Eagles defense ramps up its play then I think the odds makers are wrong on the spread and it will be a much cl oser game." Too funny. Of course Clinton was right...
This is just a perfect example of how Clinton would use his "don't offend anybody" to win his case and push his prowess down the field that much further. It usually works, but it doesn't make him any less of a wishy washy wimp.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Amazing basketball shot
OK... this is about the most amazing Basketball at the buzzer shot I've ever seen:
video
click here for the story
And then, showing off for the press the next day, well, um... he does it again.
National Review, Newsweek, Shame!?
There was some talk on the The Corner about the Newsweek cover interviewing the Insurgents. Of course, National Review came out with their edition on Monday and opted for the Groundhog. Now we can dismiss the charges because they do have deadlines and these deadlines did not correspond with the great Iraqi election on Sunday.
But Newsweek is a more despicable party, their intentions being suspect. I was still slightly enbarrased for NR until I read Jonah's article. Now I'm all warm and fuzzy inside. Thanks Jonah and I forgive you for not being up to the minute timely. :)
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Calling Kerry for Kids
I just got this via email from Mr. Kerry. This should be fun. Would they would run all of these:
Subject: Call 1-866-876-4490
Dear Justin,
Our Put Kids First campaign is drawing national attention to the needs of the 11 million American children living without health insurance. This week, we take it to another level.
In less than 36 hours, President Bush will use his State of the Union speech to stampede the country into a false sense of crisis on Social Security, while ignoring the real and immediate crisis of 11 million American children waking up this morning without health insurance.
But, we won't accept the President's refusal to act as the final word on meeting the needs of our children. Not a chance. Last week, our Senate introduction of the Kids First Act of 2005 added even more energy to our drive for citizen co-sponsors for this vital legislation. Nearly 500,000 people have now signed on to our efforts.
When I laid out our plans in a national speech to Families USA last week, it stood in sharp contrast to the President's "no real answer" photo op on health care the same day in Ohio. And, this past Sunday, I continued carrying our message about covering every child to the national media on Meet the Press.
Here's what's next:
This week, I'm calling on the johnkerry.com community to "Give Voice to Our Values" by providing vocal support for our effort to provide every child in America with health care coverage. I need you to be a part of this effort.
Make Your Personal Call Right Now.
Call our "Give Voice to Your Values" project at 1-866-876-4490. At this toll-free number, you can record a message describing, in your own words, why it is so critical for America to Put Kids First.
If you have a personal story about a child living without health insurance, I hope you'll see it in your heart to share it. But, whatever your individual circumstance, it is essential that Americans from all walks of life give vocal support to our Put Kids First initiative.
All through the week, we'll be compiling recorded messages from across America. We'll put them on johnkerry.com, share them with local and national media outlets, and I will be delivering a copy of selected messages from across the nation to my colleagues in the Senate.
If we want to give full expression to the strong grassroots support for putting Kids First, we've got to create new tools for making our voices heard. That's exactly why we are today launching our "Give Voice to Our Values" advocacy line.
I urge you to use it. America's children are counting on us.
Sincerely,
John Kerry
P.S. We need to make voices all across America heard. Please call right now - and take a moment to forward this message to a friend.
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