J's Cafe Nette

Archive for September 25th, 2007

Mary Katharine Ham of Townhall secured this excellent footage at the rally of the Vets for Freedom and Blue and Gold Star families.

I found some of the answers the individuals attending this event received from some of our elected officials and a few other “celebrities” quite interesting. At least those asking the questions and Senator Lieberman “get it.”

What a great video!

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Ed Driscoll has addressed the evolution of mass media in its various forms just superbly.

If you are someone involved in the information business from mass media to talk radio or the largest or smallest blog on the web, this is a must read.

The twentieth century was the high point of mass culture—or “the overculture” as some call it. Any culture that could produce Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and The Honeymooners can’t be all bad.

But eventually, the connection between media elites and their audiences began to fracture. Though apocryphal, the line frequently attributed to Pauline Kael of the New Yorker in 1972 sums up the growing chasm between the overculture—particularly the media—and its audience: “I don’t know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him.”

Just as the Big Three car manufacturers, with a once-monolithic hold on American consumers, seemed unaware that the public wanted a wider choice of cars (until Japan listened and responded), Pauline Kael’s in-crowd of coastal elites has, if anything, become even more clueless and resistant to emerging changes in the culture and dissemination of information.

How clueless? In 2004, Jonathan Klein, the former executive vice president of CBS News, described blogging as “a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.” Last May, Time-Warner CEO Richard Parsons was quoted as saying, “The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world. We are the Sioux nation. They will lose this war if they go to war. The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion.”

Just how did the mainstream media (“MSM”) become so monolithic and unresponsive in the first place? And how is the rise of “Weblogs” helping to establish a new, more “fair and balanced” form of journalism?

Mr. Driscoll surely needs no help from me describing the balance of this piece. It is just one informative, terrific article.

HT: Instapundit

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Personally, I hope so. All this nonsense about disenfranchising certain voters and this being about the color of someone’s skin has gone far beyond sensibility.

When the United States Supreme Court addresses the issue early next year, their ultimate decision could affect elections in this country for years.

The Supreme Court said on Tuesday it would rule on whether U.S. voters must show a government-issued photo identification at the polls, a divisive issue ahead of next year’s national elections.

The justices said they would review a U.S. appeals court ruling that upheld an Indiana law considered the most restrictive in the nation requiring voters to present a photo ID issued by the state or federal government, such as a driver’s license or a passport.

The 2005 law, which applies to both primary and general elections, has been challenged by lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Indiana Democratic Party for imposing an unfair burden on the right to vote, especially on the elderly, poor, disabled or homeless.

We desperately need a uniform Voter ID system and one which not only proves who an individual is, but confirms their citizenship.

Until then, I fear almost every election held in this country will be challenged on some level as to its authenticity.

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The brain is fuzzy from a touch of the flu so I hope you will bear with me as all I have the intelligence (and energy) to do right now is link to what I thought were a few interesting reads.

You know that BDS we have all come to recognize instantly? Here’s a piece at Wizbang, with some interesting insight into the topic.

Neither President Bush nor Vice-President Cheney are running for any office next fall; indeed no one in the Bush White House has expressed a desire to be the nation’s next President or a Senator or Congressman. Yet the leading Democrats are all running against President Bush, as if he were the GOP’s nominee. Hillary Clinton leads the pack, and acts as if it were the 2004 election again, not 2008.

And the Left’s mob of frenzied trolls shows the same confused devotion to the President. One recent example is the protest against the tasering of a Leftist student who disrupted an appearance by Senator Kerry. A student newspaper, after weighing all the evidence and considering the circumstances, chose to reference the event with a profane insult directed at President Bush.

Cal Thomas at Real Clear Politics thinks fair is fair. I tend to agree.

I would not be as bothered by Columbia University’s decision to host Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if Columbia and other universities had a consistent policy toward those they invite to speak and the rules applied equally to conservatives and liberals; to totalitarian dictators and to advocates for freedom and tolerance.

For a feel good story this Tuesday morning it’s The Wide Awake Cafe. It’s just wonderful for so many reasons.

Finally:

For those interested in the upcoming Senate races in 2008 GOP Bloggers links to the brand new NRSC website.

Lot’s of information and a place for us on the republican side to follow the races closely. It’s one I know I’ll bookmark.

Here’s hoping you all have a great Tuesday.

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Here’s the Iranian News Agency’s account of Ahmadinejad’s address at Columbia University yesterday.

Ahmadinejad-Colombia Varsity-Address
Despite entire US media objections, negative propagation and hue and cry in recent days over IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s scheduled address at Colombia University, he gave his lecture and answered students questions here on Monday afternoon.

On second day of his entry in New York, and amid standing ovation of the audience that had attended the hall where the Iranian President was to give his lecture as of early hours of the day, Ahmadinejad said that Iran is not going to attack any country in the world.

Before President Ahamadinejad’s address, Colombia University Chancellor in a brief address told the audience that they would have the chance to hear Iran’s stands as the Iranian President would put them forth.

He said that the Iranians are a peace loving nation, they hate war, and all types of aggression.

Referring to the technological achievements of the Iranian nation in the course of recent years, the president considered them as a sign for the Iranians’ resolute will for achieving sustainable development and rapid advancement.

The audience on repeated occasion applauded Ahmadinejad when he touched on international crises.

At the end of his address President Ahmadinejad answered the students’ questions on such issues as Israel, Palestine, Iran’s nuclear program, the status of women in Iran and a number of other matters.

Gosh, it sounds like they liked him at Columbia, doesn’t it?

Let me give you a selected quote from Reuters:

NEW YORK, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Vilified as a Holocaust denier, a supporter of terrorism and a backer of Iraqi insurgents, the president of Iran was actually able to make New Yorkers burst into laughter — but not at a joke.

“In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University on Monday in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay men there.

“In Iran we do not have this phenomenon,” he continued. “I do not know who has told you we have it.”

Loud laughs and boos broke from the audience of about 700 people, mostly students at the Ivy League school whose garb included “Stop Ahmadinejad’s Evil” T-shirts.

Of course there are no homosexuals in Iran; they kill them all.

Finally there is this quote from WCBS TV in New York:

As many as 25,000 people from around the metro area and the country flocked to the U.N. to protest Ahmadinejad’s visit.

I wonder if his partner in crime, Chavez will receive the same kind of welcome.

I can hope, can’t I?

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably thought his appearance at Columbia University would be a walk in the park, but he, and I found out differently.

Ahmadinejad portrayed himself as an intellectual and argued that his administration respected reason and science. But the former engineering professor, appearing shaken and irate over he called “insults” from his host, soon found himself drawn into the type of rhetoric that has alienated American audiences in the past.

He provoked derisive laughter by responding to a question about Iran’s execution of homosexuals by saying: “In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country … I don’t know who’s told you that we have this.”

Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, set the combative tone in his introduction of Ahmadinejad: “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator.”

Ahmadinejad retorted that Bollinger’s opening was “an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here.”

“There were insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully,” Ahmadinejad said, accusing Bollinger of falling under the influence of the hostile U.S. press and politicians….

…Asked by an audience member if Iran sought the destruction of Israel, Ahmadinejad did not answer directly.

“We are friends of all the nations,” he said. “We are friends with the Jewish people. There are many Jews in Iran living peacefully with security.”

He also said Palestinians must determine their own future.

Ahmadinejad’s past statements about the Holocaust also have raised hackles in the West, and were soundly attacked by Bollinger.

“In a December 2005 state television broadcast, you described the Holocaust as the fabricated legend,” Bollinger told Ahmadinejad said in his opening remarks. “One year later, you held a two-day conference of Holocaust deniers.”

Bollinger said that might fool the illiterate and ignorant.

“When you come to a place like this, it makes you simply ridiculous. The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history,” he said.

Ahmadinejad denied he had questioned whether the Holocaust occurred.

“Granted this happened, what does it have to do with the Palestinian people?” he said.

If he’s as smart as he thinks he is he will research history and find that every Palestinian in the land now called Israel was given the opportunity to stay in the new country with full rights of citizenship. That they chose to leave and live in squalor in their own Arab brothers’ land is their own fault.

I read somewhere Monday there were about 10,000 protesters to greet the little man from Iran. BTW, someone needs to tell him while in Rome do as the Romans. Here we change our clothes daily and do not appear in public with the same jacket, sweater and shirt on two times in a row.

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