2008--THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY

2008–THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

As a tumultuous 2008 draws to a lurching close and a turbulent 2009 waits in the wings for the Times Square ball to drop tomorrow night, it’s an apt time to look back on the past year.

However, since every broadcast and cable network is already presenting its 2008 Year in Review, it would be redundant to do so here. Instead, I humbly offer my picks for the best, the worst, and the ugliest ”things” of 2008.

All of those categories feature multiple, worthy contestants although there are far fewer candidates vying for the peak of the good heap than there are for the bad and ugly top spots.

Far and away the best thing to happen to America over the past year would also have to be the choice for the past seven years as well, namely a non-event, the fact that the nation has not suffered another terrorist attack in almost 88 months.

That fact has led to a distinctly blase’ attitude among many Americans who have pushed memories of 9/11/2001 to back burners or have pushed it off the stove entirely, which is extremely unfortunate since those who forget the past historically ended up reliving it in the future.

Despite one’s view of President George W. Bush, he has to be accorded his due. Our national security programs and systems are deeply flawed, as has been pointed out in this space, but they have evidently been sufficiently effective, so far.

What the future holds, what 2009 and ensuing years have in store for us, is speculative at best but, as of now, we are relatively secure as a nation so the best thing not to happen to America in 2008 is easily the absence of another assault. For that, Americans should be deeply thankful and should be praying the situation continues. GWB deserves tip of the hat.

I struggled to choose the worst thing about 2008 because of the more subjective nature of such a choice....
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HOOKING UP

HOOKING UP ISN’T HARD TO DO, OR CAMPUS SEX

Now that college freshmen are home for winter/holiday (no longer Christmas) break, toting his/her wash and maybe some of that “freshman fifteen” excess poundage, it may be time for another of what we used to call a sitdown.

That was our word for heart-to-hearts when the kids were in high school and in their early college years and we felt a need to impart more of our extensive, mature knowledge, mostly gained from years of making our own stupid mistakes.

Sitdowns, of course, were aimed at imparting sage parental advice on the pitfalls, temptations, and vicissitudes of growing up and moving on down that landmined road of life, delivered in solemn tones, and usually received with poorly-concealed and barely-audible groans.

One notable hazard on that road today is the practice of hookups, a contemporary alternative to dating which itself was fraught with dangers although hookups make those threats to physical safety seem miniscule.

And, despite decades of women’s lib propaganda and graphic sex classes on contracting what used to be called a “social disease”–a misnomer if there ever was one–members of the female gender tend to bear the emotional and physical brunt, no pun intended, of today’s sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s).

Hooking up, simplified, is the modern practice of avoiding relationships and emotional entanglements by having sex. It also serves to relieve the stress of all those books to read and papers to write, and parties to attend, by coupling with someone. In some cases, it simply serves to pass the time and stave off boredom.

That someone could be a “friend with benefits,” a euphemism for a good buddy with whom you copulate as a favor, as a reward, or simply as a way of extending friendship to an ultimate extreme.

Or, it could be someone you just met at a keg party...
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HERB AND MARION SANDLER PURGE SNL

THE SANDLERS DIRTY HANDS AND SNL’S PUSILLANIMITY

Anyone who remembers the early years of “NBC’s Saturday Night,” later called, “Saturday Night Live,” or “SNL,” with its not-ready-for-prime-time-players, is aware that all subsequent efforts to replicate the original have fallen far short of both its success and its innovative brand of humor.

Of the original cast, the pratfalling Chevy Chase is now washed-up, the insanely riotous John Belushi and Gilda Radner are long dead as is the later arrival but almost as funny, Chris Farley. Such personalities as Dan Aykroyd, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Bill Murray went on to some limited measures of post-SNL success.

The notoriously-unfunny Al Franken, who always played his schleppy self, went on to host a failed, liberal talk show and is now in process of stealing a United States Senate seat from Republican, Norm Coleman.

With the exception of Franken, the old, improvisational SNL players had at least a modicum of comedic talent as opposed to the newest crew which should be ready for prime time a few months after hell freezes over.

Even after enticing producer Lorne Michaels back to the show some years back, it’s obvious that SNL will never reclaim its former glory, reasons for which include a lack of talent and the fact that SNL is rarely funny anymore since it has subjugated its humor to Big Media’s Political Correctness.

AmericanThinker.com perfectly illustrated the latter in the recent article on the former “Paper of Record” which prints all the news that fits, the soon-to-be-defunct New York Times: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/12/the_new_york_times_finally_get.html.

Some bodacious and foolhardy SNL writer(s)...
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MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!


“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

THE NOBEL POLITICAL PRIZE

THE NOBEL POLITICAL PRIZE

Does the Nobel Peace Prize Selection Committee ever rescind one of its priceless awards and demand return of its money? If not, it should.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), divvied up the Nobel Peace Prize (Nobelpriset, in Swedish) cash with Al Gore in 2007, splitting the approximate $1.6 million award. Both should cough up their shares since neither has advanced the cause of world peace even an iota.

Gore should have rejected it on the spot, given the fraudulent nature of An Inconvenient Truth, the “documentary” which won him an Academy Award in Hollywood and which must have convinced the Swedes that he knew what he was babbling about. He didn’t, as shown by, among many other sources, this Canadian analysis which described the award as a “travesty:” http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/261.

Now the IPCC has been outed for what it truly is, a group of intergovernmental blowhards pretending to be climatologists committed to saving the planet from itself–and from Americans dirtying up the atmosphere. In actuality, the IPCC now concedes its dire predictions as to the effects and even the existence of global warming aren’t even predictions. Rather, they are “projections:” http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7116.

The IPCC began its word play in 2001 when it altered its nomenclature: “Projections are distinguished from predictions in order to emphasise that projections involve assumptions concerning e.g. future socio-economic and technological developments that may or may not be realised and are therefore subject to substantial uncertainty.”

Huh? Simplified, that means the IPCC admitted it guesses the future and may very well be totally wrong. Expressed another way, it assumes the climate’s future is predicated on what could happen, and we all know what happens when we assume.

I’m guessing those climatologists looked out a window, sniffed the air, and decided to hedge their language though not their cataclysmic “projections,” which are dependent on which direction the political winds are blowing. In the case of the IPCC, its prevailing winds are always blowing from the Left of the political spectrum.

It’s sad really what has happened to the Nobel Peace Prize. It is now conferred...

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THE T.S.A.

TSA: TRANSPORTION STUPIDITY ADMINISTRATION
If it were simply guilty of stupidity, the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, could almost be forgiven.

Almost.

It’s true that we haven’t suffered a terrorist attack in over seven years but whether that is due to the vigilance of the TSA, due to the investigative skills of the FBI and CIA, due to local police forces, or due to dumb luck is very debatable.

Established in the aftermath of 9/11 because, apparently, America had no need for security prior to that date, the TSA has proven itself to be an inept, lard-ridden, bureaucratic mess staffed with undertrained, underpaid, and undermotivated agents who are seriously in need of remedial classes in common sense and courtesy.

Anyone who has travelled in the last seven years and wended his or her way through the warren of security checks at airports has no doubt encountered a few TSA people up close and personal. I know I have and I’ve seen a few reading newspapers, one doing her nails, and some actually working.

Meanwhile, we have dutifully removed belts, shoes, the contents of our pockets, surrendered our bottles of Perrier, and subjected ourselves to X-rays and in some cases friskings and even body searches. John Gotti endured less official harassment.

The TSA, which is charged with keeping America and Americans and foreign travellers in our land secure, is performing that task in one godawful way. For two analyses of TSA failures, please see http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2007/09/11/TSA-Security-Problems and http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul220.html.

In defining itself and its mission, the TSA website states, ...

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THE USS LIBERTY: INFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION

When I posted the article, “The Shame of the USS Liberty,” I never anticipated such a ruckus over its contents. I felt it was a one-shot deal, just a pertinent reminder of what many still firmly believe was a miscarriage of military and political justice.

The often venomous reactions to my two most recent articles have served as assurances that the subject is well worth a retrospective commemoration, at the minimum or, preferably, an exhaustive re-investigation.

To relegate the memory of the USS Liberty to nothing more than a blip in America’s history would be the equivalent of forgetting Pan Am Flight 103 which was blown out of the night sky over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988.

Simply because Libya has finally admitted its responsibility in that terrorist atrocity and has finally paid reparations doesn’t mitigate the horror of that attack nor does it relieve the burden of Libyan guilt.

So, too, with the Liberty and Israel, which indemnified the victims with some $7 million dollars. Unlike Libya, however, Israel has never admitted any guilt.

Baseless charges of anti-Semitism have been lodged because I have dared to criticize Israel, (as well as my own government), for Isreal’s unprovoked attack on the Liberty. Almost as repulsive have been suggestions that I am a supporter of President-elect Obama since I expressed the sarcastic hope that maybe he would re-open the matter of the Liberty.

Israel is an autonymous, democratic state. It is not a theocracy and to offer valid critiques of that state and its actions represents no more an attack on the Judaic religion than, for example, criticizing the actions of the Canadian government would indicate a disdain for the Canadian people.

Likewise, objecting to the Jewish Lobby in America and finding fault with its inordinate power does not constitute an exercise in hatred of Judaism any more than disdain for lobbyists for Big Oil would imply contempt for gasoline.

As far as I am concerned, allegations of anti-Semitism arising from a discussion of the Liberty, or of the Jewish lobby, is a misleading and dead issue.

Less dead are fair questions as to why I choose to revisit rumors, allegations and facts relating to the events of June 8th, 1967 at this time–or at anytime.

The chief reason would be that the vast bulk of available information on the Liberty does not involve mere rumor and the case has never been closed. Indeed, it was never adequately investigated.

Contrary to some of the sounds and furies which have arisen and critics’ claims that I had ulterior purposes in writing about the Liberty, I simply feel that to forget what happened in 1967 would be to dishonor the forty one innocent men who died and the 174 who were injured and maimed.

Any more than Israel would want the world to forget the horror of the Holocaust, I refuse...
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