Christina’s Common Sense

Pat Robertson founded a fine university, but he’s still a major loose cannon and I’m hardly a fan of his. Now, I’m less of a fan.

Recently, Robertson joined the Christians embarrassing themselves by jumping aboard the environmental bandwagon with the likes of Al Sharpton. The two have even made a commercial for wecansolveit.org where they get all buddy-buddy on a beach talking about how important it is to protect the planet.

Now, before anyone accuses me of littering along the highway and driving a Hummer just to waste gas, let me defend myself. I do believe it protecting the environment. As a Christian, God has commanded me to be a steward of the environment. Plus, it’s not exactly in my best interest to live on a polluted planet. However, Christians need to realize that protecting the planet does not mean using the government to compel others to do it—and it certainly doesn’t mean allying ourselves with thugs like Al Sharpton to get it done.

And, though I’m not a basketball fan, let me take this opportunity to congratulate the Boston Celtics on winning their 17th NBA title on Tuesday, and their first in my lifetime.

In today’s world, everyone wants to be a victim. It’s the cool thing to do, especially if you’re gay, black, or a woman. If you’re all three, it’s even cooler. But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about history becoming subordinate to victimology.

Spike Lee (black guy, film director, victim extraordinaire, and Yankees fan to add insult to injury), has recently taken issue with Clint Eastwood (white guy, film director, and conservative) for not putting any black guys in his 2006 blockbusters Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.

Lee might have a legitimate case had there been black guys on Iwo Jima. Having spent most of the spring semester researching this epic battle, I can attest that I did not run across a single book, chapter, paragraph, sentence, or footnote addressing black Marines on the island. The military was segregated in 1945, so to have blacks and whites fighting alongside each other would have been a big fat deal. Would nobody have written about it? Would those books nobody has written not be unbelievably famous? They would, because back then it would have been unprecedented. The lack of documentation is, to my mind, proof that no black men fought in this battle. That’s not racism. It’s just the truth (which, of course, is racism these days).

If you think that’s laughable, let’s address Lee’s beef with Letters from Iwo Jima, which recounts Iwo from the Japanese’s end. Do I really need to say anything here? The Japanese are the most homogeneous population on the face of the earth. What does Spike Lee want to do, dress a bunch of Kobe Bryant lookalikes in Imperial Japanese battle garb and try to pass them off as authentic Japanese men?

What’s next? Should we alter the famous photograph (over this Marine lover’s dead body) to show a few women raising the flag? Let’s Photoshop a ponytail onto Harlon Block’s head! That’ll make the professional victims happy! Hey, how about a Japanese guy jumping out of his bunker to help the Americans stick the flag on Mt. Suribachi? Then we can be really fair to everyone.

Spike Lee is revealing himself and those who agree with him to be horses’ derrieres. However, he may shut up and retreat back to his millions of dollars soon enough—the Italic Institute of America has accused him of being anti-Italian.

It seems like there’s an advocacy group for everything these days. Everything from disability to skin color runs to the government for money and advocacy. The blind are no different. Yesterday, a DC appeals court ruled that the government must redo paper currency so that blind people can identify what denomination of bill they are holding.

I know I’m going to come across as heartless and cruel here, but are blind people starving to death because they can’t figure out what bill they need to pay for their lunch? I sincerely doubt it. They’ve obviously figured something out. Beyond that, how much is this going to cost? I don’t have an exact figure, but it can’t be cheap. Can blind people not think of any way to design their own system for categorizing bills?

I’m sure they can. But we don’t live in a society where we do things ourselves anymore. We live in a society where we run to the government and hold the rest of the country hostage when things don’t go our way. The country is now going to have to spend billions of dollars to take care of something that can be taken care of without government help.

Loss of sight is a terrible thing to live with. But so’s a learning disability. I happen to have the latter. There are certain limitations that come with it. One of these is that I will probably never be able to balance my own checkbook. That stinks! But I’m not going to go to my bank and demand that they revamp their checkbook so my life can be easier. I use a calculator, or ask my parents for help. This is part of having my particular disability, and I’ve managed it without help from Uncle Sam. Is it impossible that blind people might be able to do the same?

You will likely have to read this post, and the Boston Herald article, at least twice before you believe what you see. I know I did.

Even if you’re not a big baseball fan, you’d have to live under a rock to not have some knowledge of the near-century-long rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. Normally it’s all in good fun—until about the 7th Inning Stretch, at which time a fair amount of liquid courage has been ingested by fans on both sides.

That’s pretty much what happened a couple of years ago, when a Yankees fan and a Red Sox fan met in a sports bar in California. When Mr. New York cheered for the Yankees over the Cleveland, Mr. Boston, who was cheering for the Sox over Tampa Bay, uttered some unkind words in his rival’s direction.

As noted in an earlier paragraph, the Yankees/Sox fun and games vanishes darn quickly after a couple of beers. As such, the altercation became physical and resulted in Mr. Yankees punching Mr. Red Sox in the mouth. Such is not terribly unusual between Yankees fans and Sox fans. But it is unusual to sue the assaulted for damage done to your hand by his tooth.

This lawsuit has just been settled, costing the Red Sox fan $25000. The Yankees fan won because, as a musician, he depends on his hands to make a living and having his opponent’s tooth lodged in his knuckle was a major inconvenience. Therefore, some idiot judge decided to slap the Red Sox fan with $25000.

This was a silly case, and the judge who agreed to hear it should be disbarred and not allowed to practice law ever again. So should whichever lawyer agreed to take this case. If this Yankees-fan-turned-musician wants to protect his hands, maybe he should consider not decking people over baseball games. But he won’t, because the legal system has taught him that he can run to a lawyer and sue the person he assaulted over the damages.

I could also use this to make disparaging comments about Yankees fans. But I won’t.

Once again proving that he has no shame and no standards, Rev. Jeremiah Wright (I’d like to have a chat with whoever sat on his ordination council) appeared at the National Press Club this morning and proclaimed the attacks on him as attacks on “the black church.”

Excuse me? The black church?! Is this guy kidding? If a white pastor went to the Press Club and talked about “the white church,” he’d be out on his ear with the American Commie-Lib Union all over him like ugly on an ape! But Jeremiah Wright can say it and nobody bats an eye.

People say America is a racist country. They’re wrong and at the same time they’re right. Blacks are no longer enslaved or forcibly segregated from the white population. This has been replaced by a belief that black people cannot be racist. We now have a society in which black people can say anything they want and white people have to pussy-foot around everything for fear of offending blacks. That is not racial equality.

And the best thing? Obama has said, and I quote: “The fact that he’s my former pastor I think makes it a legitimate political issue.” 

Whatever you say, Barack! Hope you’re having as much fun engineering your electoral demise as I am witnessing it.

Well.

I didn’t have a high opinion of Time Magazine before. Now it’s so low it would need to go up to reach zero.

In an upcoming issue, Time has ditched the red border in favor of a green one. The reason, of course, is to make green “the new red, white & blue.”

That’s dumb, but really nothing new from the eco-freaks. But what has me en fuego is the picture on the cover, which depicts the famous Iwo Jima flagraising photo with a pine tree in place of the flag. According to the magazine’s editor, “There needs to be a real effort along the lines of World War II to combat climate change.”

Yes. Your monitor is working.

I’m not hopping mad about this just because Iwo Jima happens to be my favorite WWII battle (but I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a factor). I’m not even hopping mad because the idea that global warming is a crisis on par with Pearl Harbor is ludicrous (even though it is). I’m hopping mad because this picture puts environmentalists In the same category as the Marines who fought on Iwo. They’re not, and only a fool would think they are. Time has some nerve belittling the sacrifice that allows them to make such wrongheaded statements. I hope they hear from some Marines about it. But somehow, I don’t think I have to worry.

My friends in the service have a saying: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. If you can’t figure out what it means, Google it. It’s about the best thing I can think of to describe the latest shenanigans of the environmental movement.

There has perennially been a call to outlaw/ban incandescent light bulbs because of their supposed drain on the environment. Unfortunately for the likes of GreenPeace and Earth First!, too many people are sensitive to fluorescent light, the only viable alternative at this point, to make a ban on incandescent viable. Now we’ve got compact fluorescent bulbs, which are like a fluorescent bulb except smaller, hence the name. These bulbs burn 70% less energy and last much longer than incandescents. But they have one catch: they contain mercury.

Mercury, of course, is toxic. This isn’t really a big deal since there’s only a small amount of it sealed up in the light bulb anyway, right? That’s true—provided the light bulb doesn’t break. If it does, the room will resemble a CSI episode. According to health professinals (didn’t we used to call them doctors?) you should ventilate the room for 15 minutes, get everyone out of there, and clean it up with duct tape while wearing gloves. Then you should seal the offending toxic metals, along with your gloves and the tape, in a glass jar.

And of course, since mercury is toxic it is therefore HazMat, so you can’t just toss a compact fluorescent bulb should it burn out. You’ve either got to recycle it or wait for HazMat pickup days. And as that old and useless air conditioner still on my bedroom floor will attest, HazMat pickup days are few and far between.

Now, I like energy efficiency. I like being a good steward of my money and the environment. But I don’t think it’s right to put our families at risk in order to do so. Pregnant women and small children are warned to stay away from salmon because of possible mercury contamination. Doctors can’t even use mercury thermometers anymore. And we want to put light bulbs with this stuff in our houses and around our kids?

If this were anything but a light bulb, there would be a huge outcry over the dangers of mercury should the light break. But America’s become so sold out to the eco-freaks that we think it’s OK to put harmful materials in our homes if it might help the planet. The environmental movement is no longer pro-earth, it’s anti-human. The idea that we must sacrifice ourselves so the planet can live is a sad testament to just how far the loony environmentalists have led us, and how blindly we have followed them.

If you saw this picture on a billboard what would you think? You’d probably think Absolut Vodka was saying that a perfect world would be one in which a good chunk of America belonged to Mexico (and unofficially, they’ve got their wish). If you thought that, your humble blogger would agree with you. And although Absolut hasn’t stated that officially, it’s kind of hard to see what else they’re trying to say.

The ad, which ran in Mexico, has now been pulled because some Americans became indignant over the insinuation that their country would be better off run by a land whose main export is criminaliens to the United States. Some immigration hawks have started a movement to boycott Absolut products.

If you’re hopping aboard this bandwagon (and if I were a Vodka fan, I’d be right with you), don’t kid yourself—a boycott of Absolut won’t ruin the company. However, it could make them sweat. And it should. That ad encourages and endorses illegal activity against a country that probably represents a good deal of Absolut’s customer base. It also shows Absolut’s advertising department to be ignorant about their job. It’s a bad idea to insult your customers. Maybe next time they feel like turning their advertisements into a political statement, they’ll remember that.

China has been causing much angst and consternation of late, with the whole Tibet fiasco and all. On top of all that, the summer Olympics will be held in Beijing this summer. Now, Hillary is calling for Pres. Bush to boycott the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies unless China shapes up and starts paying attention to human rights.

I can hardly think of a more limp-wristed, sissy-Mary way to show disapproval for China’s behavior. Not attend the opening ceremonies? What the heck is that going to accomplish? Nothing, that’s what it will accomplish. Not showing up to the opening ceremonies will have no impact on the Chinese. They lose nothing if our president does not attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. We, however, lose a lot. If Pres. Bush stays home from the Olympics, it will only make America look like she doesn’t have the guts to really reprimand China.

If America wants to show its displeasure with China, she should do so in a manner that actually gets attention. Not by keeping her president at home for the opening ceremonies. If we think that’s going to change any behavior, we’re kidding ourselves. Besides, the Olympics is a time for the world to send its best of the best to compete on the biggest stage in the world, not a time to play politics. Is that too much to ask?

Thanks to Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos, primaries in Ohio and Indiana have fallen under scrutiny of late. Ohio primary voters who crossed over to the Democrat side faced possible charges, but since what they did wasn’t illegal the charges were never pressed.

Now, the Indiana primary is the subject of media attention too. The Democrats fear that Republicans may use the state’s open primary law to “create mischief” and are calling out a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to steal the election. According to a Clintonite super-delegate, “If there are Republicans sincere in their intent to support our candidates, then we welcome them into our party. If their motives are only to play mischief, we’re not going to sit back and let this happen.”

Tough luck, Democrats! You’ve used the open primary process to “create mischief” in our primaries, and it worked! You made Juan McAmnesty our nominee. You can’t do stuff like that and then complain when it’s done to you. If you want us to follow the rules, I suggest you set the example yourself first.