‘Respek,’ Andy Rooney

Celebrity, Hollywood, Media, The Zeitgeist

Have just finished watching “Da Compleet Second Seazon of Da Ali Gi Show,” on DVD. Great stuff.

I’ve never cared much for Andy Rooney, but I have some “respek” for him after watching how angry he got over Ali Gi‘s English. Remember, all the interviewed believe that the interviews our gangsta from the streets of Staines conducts for the benefit of his audience—the urban youth of the U.K—are “for weal.” And so politically correct are they that few dare protest Ali Gi’S abominal ignorance and English. Except for Rooney. Good for the “geezer.”

“I is here wit’ none other dan my main man Andy Rooney,” to which Rooney replies: “I am here; I am here, I am here.” Ali tries again, “Does you think that…” To which Rooney, raging like Rumpelstiltskin, retorted: “It’s ‘do you think, do you think.'”

Still, Rooney ought to develop a funny bone. I mean, when Ali feigned hurt over Rooney’s rudeness—”‘is it ‘cos I is black,’ (even though he is quite obviously not)—Rooney should have cracked up. On the other hand, this culture has deteriorated to the extent that it’s not easy to tell whether the Ali Gis of the world are “for weal” or not.

Remember, in Ali Gi, Sasha Baron Cohen—the comic genius who’s also behind the Borat and Bruno characters—is lampooning a creature whose utter illiteracy has been cultivated by the establishment as a form of authenticity. All his guests, with few welcome exceptions, are quite polite and rather accepting of his unabashed idiocy.

I can’t wait to see Cohen’s new feature film: “Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”

Conservatives in Name Only

Conservatism, Morality, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Sex

“The sexual shenanigans of Mark Foley and their cover-up are less indicative of the collapse of conservatism in the Republican establishment than is the Iraq misadventure.

True, if establishment Republicans had the faintest affinity for conservatism, they’d have rid themselves of a member more at home in the Man/Boy Love Association. But more significantly, they’d quit pouring American blood and treasure down the Iraqi drain.

To follow the dictionary, a conservative is someone who seeks to preserve existing institutions, or to restore traditional ones. It is not that he disdains constructive change; rather, he wants it to grow organically from its cultural and political soil. A real conservative would therefore never graft democratic institutions onto a society in which adversaries have always assassinated—not outpolled—one another…”

The excerpt is from my new WorldNetDaily column, “Conservatives in Name Only.”

Updated: Pacifist Protest à la Islam

Britain, Islam, Media

Fox News is even more politically correct than the Guardian. The latter at least described the hijackers of a Turkish passenger plane today as “two Turks.”

Fox’s Martha MacCallum left it at “two men,” also leaving viewers to puzzle over questions a news lead is supposed to answer upfront: What, Where, Who, Why, and How.

According to the Guardian:

“Two Turkish men who hijacked a Turkish Airlines flight from Tirana to Istanbul tonight surrendered to Italian police.
…The aircraft, carrying 113 passengers and six crew, was forced to land at Brindisi airport in southern Italy after it was intercepted by Greek and then Italian fighter jets.”
…it appeared that the hijackers did not have any weapons”

As I say, commandeering a passenger plane, weaponless, is a Muslim’s version of a Gandhian protest.

“Early reports said the men were protesting against the Pope’s plans to visit Turkey.” But Turkey, itching to enter the EU (the Pontiff is definitely uneager for Turkey to enter), spun the heist thus: “the Turkish transport minister told Associated Press that the hijackers’ aim was to seek political asylum.”

At least the faithful are looking for peaceful ways with which to respond to the Pope’s pacifist speech about the irrationality of Islam.

Update: According to CNN, via Jihad Watch, the Turkish hijackers were indeed asylum seekers; they had no designs on the Pope. The AP has, so far, stuck with the story the Guardian reported.

You say Foley; I Say Iraq

Democrats, Iraq, Republicans, War

Florida Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican, “abruptly quit Congress on Friday after reports surfaced that he had sent sexually charged electronic messages to boys working as pages,”reports the Washington Times. Foley is under the FBI’s criminal investigation, although it’s not clear what federal or state laws, if any, he has violated. (The Law Against Lowlifes in Politics?) It appears the agency is searching for that law. (The country’s journalists are incapable of writing a news lead, much less properly fleshing out a story.)

Foley, like Debra LaFave, another paragon of the public-sector, claimed one of those bogus illnesses: alcoholism (at the root of the diseasing of behavior is the eradication of good and bad). To quickly establish the presence of mitigating factors, Foley checked himself into a rehab facility. However, he doesn’t have slut appeal; so it probably won’t work.

If Democrats weren’t so dumb, they’d comment tersely on this sordid affair, and then move on post haste to the real corruption: Iraq. (Condi Rice—as fleet of foot as ever in evading responsibility for anything, really—has used the distraction to deny her contribution to the lack of preparedness for the 9/11 onslaught. She’s resurrecting the same excuses I deconstructed in “Hold their Feet to the Fire.”)

The Republicans don’t deserve to govern because of Iraq (and immigration), not Foley. But neither do the Democrats (a pox on both their houses). As for traditional conservatives, (as opposed establishment Republicans), at the very least, they ought to consider President Bush’s positions on mass immigration and the national identity, the debt, and the growth in the size and power of government inimical to conservatism. However, they rarely pipe up these days about the accretion of the state under Bush. If only their concept of good government extended beyond pious homilies to family values, faith and fetuses.