Al Father, who art in transit
Phony be thy game
Thy Lear-Jet hums
Those lies you’ve spun
About Earth, and your huge mansion
Give us a break, your daily dread
And forgive us with bus passes
As we curse those flying first-class above us
And lead us not into stagflation
But humor us more, Sir Carbon-Knievel
Amen!
By now you’ve seen the surveillance-tape images again and again: an ancient woman pushes her walker along the foyer of an apartment building. A robust man moves in, and punches her in the head repeatedly. Before she goes down, the centenarian reaches pitifully for the purse the thug has snatched. He turns to finally flatten her.
This is a scene lacking in any nuances. At a time in her life when she ought to be shown respect, a frail lady is treated with brutality. That the woman, Rose Morat, is talking brave, and being made a celebrity for her tough-old-biddy stance after the fact does nothing to change that she was a helpless victim. To pretend otherwise is plain perverse.
The camera caught a frail lady being handled like garbage. She displayed no spunk, because people her age are too frail to fend off such a feral attacker. She survived, not because of her gumption, but because her attacker did not plan to kill her.
This is not how the network nits are covering the story. CNN has been running an up-beat segment in which the centenarian receives an award for bravery. To the sound of the theme from Rocky, Rose Morat shuffles into a room of cheering twits.
Not every story is a story of triumph. Sorry, thanks to this twisted hoopla, the thug is the winner, not the woman with the walker. This feel-good reporting distracts from the reality I described–and the real business at hand: Repeat the description of the criminal again and again; show his face up close; encourage his community to rat him out–that’s how this story should be handled.
A small consolation is that once in custody, inmates will probably restore a serious tone to the tale. I believe even thugs have a code of honor they adhere to.
Watching snippets of Tim Russet’s October 2006 interview with Elizabeth Edwards, I couldn’t help but like and admire her. (On the other hand, when presidential candidate John Edwards —her husband —speaks, he sounds, as my late grandfather would say, like an ox. But then I never listen to him; I just look, because he’s so handsome.)
She spoke not of politics but of her book, Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength From Friends and Strangers. (Her “editor” did her a disservice; the correct preposition is “in,” as far as I can tell. You find solace and strength “in” someone, not “from” them. But then who cares about English, right? The consistent incorrect use of prepositions is one of the tell-tale signs of lowbrow writing, in my opinion.)
Topics such as grief, “closure,” and coping —clichés when expatiated upon by America’s recovery experts and assorted professional grievers —rang so true, coming from Edwards. The interview, a thumbnail sketch of the woman really, revealed a humble, beautifully spoken, intelligent, and refined lady. The Hildebeest (our recent discussion about one of her less menacing attributes is here) and Elizabeth Edwards —the two have personalities that are polar.
Edwards has lost a great deal of weight, probably due to her health ordeal, and is looking quite lovely. There’s a word in Hebrew, “Chen.” It encapsulates more than do the words charm or grace and befits E. Edwards.
“To me, [Barak] Obama has always seemed a reluctant recruit to racial politics; driven more by expediency and fear —fear of his overbearing wife and the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton.” But this is not how “Debra J. Dickerson, apparently a black racial theorist of note,” sees him. She “argues” in a Salon.com article that [Obama] doesn’t look right —he looks East African, when he ought to look West African. And horrors, “the handsome Obama” resembles his white mother. In short, he isn’t black enough.
But fear not, Dickerson’s commentary is never skin deep. Our African Aristotle, beloved of the liberal media, goes on to explain that “‘Black,’ in our political and social reality means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent’ are not to be admitted into the Club. (This, of course, is good news for their Designated Oppressors; the tougher the admission criteria into the Club of the Eternally Oppressed, the better.)”
Read the rest in my new WorldNetDaily column, “Homie Has Some Rings To Kiss“