Category Archives: Media

Griffin The Great

Celebrity, Hollywood, Media, Political Correctness, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

While not very many smart people are genuinely kind, very many kind people are truly smart. As Oscar Wilde reminded us, “kindliness requires imagination and intellect.” In Kathy Griffin, my favorite comedian, imagination and intellect have combined to yield a great deal of kindness. Her visit to Iraq to cheer the troops lay bare just how kind—and perceptive—she really is.

Griffin’s interactions with the broken Sgt. Adkins—he had just survived a mortar attack that took the life of his fiance and best friend—were achingly sensitive. (She did, of course, ask him if they were giving him any good drugs.)

About the unnecessary war, she said: “The more I’m in an actual war zone, the more it’s just ugly. It’s not cool, it’s not a Toby Keith song; it’s not opening up a can of whoop-ass. It’s just horrible. I don’t know. Is it really worth losing so many of our own?”

Griffin’s account of the Iraq tour on her Bravo Blog is entitled, “I Came. I Saw. Iraq.” But just in case you get the wrong idea, she quickly clarifies parenthetically: “(Which is different than “I saw Iraq. I came.” Which did not happen. Because, like I said—that place is a s**t-hole.)”

I love her to bits.

Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us

Israel, Media, Terrorism

“Paula Hancocks of CNN and her bureau beau assumed their standard position when breaking the news of Israel’s raid into Gaza to retrieve a kidnapped soldier and two civilians: face to Mecca and keister up in the air.
The CNN flacks did not exactly set the scene for the operation, although, to be fair, they mentioned in passing one disquieting possibility: Israeli’s obsession with never leaving men, dead or alive, in enemy hands…
CNN also alluded to rising tensions caused by Qassam rockets, fired daily by Gaza’s goons into the Western Negev city of Sderot. In the event you were lulled into thinking, foolishly, that this was good enough a reason for the Israeli operation, Hancocks provided a much-needed corrective: The homemade Qassam is quite harmless; Toys “R” Us will soon be incorporating these babies into their Family Guy Box Set…”

Read the complete column, “Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us,” here.

Qassam Rockets 'R' Us

Israel, Media, Terrorism

“Paula Hancocks of CNN and her bureau beau assumed their standard position when breaking the news of Israel’s raid into Gaza to retrieve a kidnapped soldier and two civilians: face to Mecca and keister up in the air.
The CNN flacks did not exactly set the scene for the operation, although, to be fair, they mentioned in passing one disquieting possibility: Israeli’s obsession with never leaving men, dead or alive, in enemy hands…
CNN also alluded to rising tensions caused by Qassam rockets, fired daily by Gaza’s goons into the Western Negev city of Sderot. In the event you were lulled into thinking, foolishly, that this was good enough a reason for the Israeli operation, Hancocks provided a much-needed corrective: The homemade Qassam is quite harmless; Toys “R” Us will soon be incorporating these babies into their Family Guy Box Set…”

Read the complete column, “Qassam Rockets ‘R’ Us,” here.

Addicted to that Rush

Criminal Injustice, Drug War, Media, The Zeitgeist, War on Drugs

It seems authorities are Addicted to that Rush; they can’t stop badgering Limbaugh about his consumption choices. Having arbitrarily decided that ingesting pain-killers is infinitely worse for individual and “society” than compulsive eating, bungee jumping, alcohol or tobacco consumption, the policy pinheads have proceeded to preemptively trample the constitutional rights of people like Limbaugh, before the foreseeable harm to “society” can occur.

Lysander Spooner, the great 19th-century theorist of liberty, held that government had no business treating vices as crimes. “Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which a man harms the person or property of another.”

This classical liberal thinks that “incarcerating people for their consumption choices has the consistency of arresting a survivor of suicide for attempted murder. Moreover, if for harming himself a man forfeits his liberty, then it can’t be said that he has dominion over his body. It implies that someone else ‘government’ owns him.” (May 8, 2002)

Be mindful that law-enforced medical treatment must also be volubly opposed. The coercive, therapeutic state is a very poor substitute for the avenging state.

Having come up hard against the reality of it, you’d think Limbaugh would have at last leapt in to denounce the Federal government’s War on Drugs. Even National Review has done an about-face. But Limbaugh is too busy hobnobbing in Washington. (Read “Rush Goes to Washington clichés. You’ll want to barf if you’re my kind of person.)

The co-dependency Limbaugh has with the state is by far the more dangerous one.