Independent Women's Forum - Charlotte Allen

"Angry" Conservatives, Ever So Polite Liberals

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:01:00 EDT

Conservatives get "angry," mean, nasty, and rude at political events, the media keep telling us-but liberals are so nice!

Miss Manners herself would have found no fault with this display of civility by the 400 demonstrators who extended loving gestures to their opponents and politely signaled their political differences with the Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, outside Philadelphia's Park Hyatt at the Bellevue hotel in Philadelphia where Palin presided over a charitable fund-raiser on Sunday before continuing on to Wachovia Stadium to help drop the ceremonial puck at a Flyers-New York Rangers hockey game.

"....Bucks County restaurateur and McCain supporter Andrew Abruzzese...flashed a peace sign at protesters, who responded with raised middle fingers. Another Republican complained of being jostled....

"Several Republican attendees complained of the protesters' vulgarity, especially in light of recent criticism of the behavior of people at McCain-Palin rallies.

"Outside on Broad Street, waiting for Palin to leave, one man was heard saying: 'Let's stone her, old school.'

Another protester shouted at someone entering the hotel, 'Wait till your daughter wants an abortion, you hypocrite.'"

That's how the Philadelphia Inquirer reported the incident. A reader of the blog Wake Up America e-mailed a photograph of four anti-Palin protesters attired in T-shirts printed with slogans that equated Palin with a gently humorous word that begins with a "c" and refers to a part of the female reproductive system.

The e-mailer wrote:

"There was group as well carrying around a fake dead fetus - exclaiming that 'abortion should have been the path for Bristol(?) Palin.' And quite a few smoke bombs, etc. etc.....

"Was this reported on the Philadelphia News. No!. Was anyone outraged? No!. All that was on the Philadelphia local news last night was: Obama was at several rallies in Philadelphia earlier in the day (but went home Saturday night to be with his children). Obama and Palin were in Philly on the same day. And was there any mention of Palin - No!. In the Sports section of the local evening news at 11:00PM, they did mention that Palin was at the Philadelphia Flyers game 'dropping the first (hockey) puck'. The guy said it with a smirk. Then he added that Sarah Palin WAS NOT going home to spend the evening with her children."

Even though Palin actually had her 7-year-old daughter, Piper, with her when she dropped that puck, as the Inquirer reported. But who says the mainstream media are fair? They're too busy reporting on those rude, horrid conservatives and their anger-management problems.

In Memoriam, Catherine Seipp

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:31:00 EDT

Our beloved IWF website contributor and dear friend died this afternoon, ending her long, brave battle against cancer and leaving many grieving family members and friends behind. This beautiful tribute by Kathryn Lopez at National Review Online (where Cathy was many years a contributor as well), says it better than I can. And Susan Estrich, whom we've sometimes dissed on this site for her political views, proved herself to be a lady of class and nobility with this tribute to Cathy for Fox News.

Godspeed, Cathy, and thanks for the privilege of having known you.

Update: Over at Cathy's World, her website, her friend Lewis Fein urges you to sign this "Love to Cathy Seipp" petition.

Cathy Seipp-- More of the Pleasure of Her Company

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:28:00 EDT

I can't add very much to Charlotte Hays's lovely tribute to this brave, tough, and talented lady who as I write doesn't have much time left after a long battle with cancer that doctors predicted she would lose years ago. It was Charlotte who discovered Cathy, one of the few Republicans in the Los Angeles writing world (or any other writing world)--and what a find! For three years Cathy's monthly articles for the IWF home page were models of acerbic wit and sharp commentary on a variety of liberal foibles. Her "Maureen Dowd Watch" alone--an IWF exclusive--was worth its weight in diamonds. Here's a sample from 2004:

"Maureen Dowd entered May with a sonic boom of idiocy that was felt as far away as Australia, and exited with a Memorial Day weekend column so patronizing it's still ringing in my ears. In between she went, as usual, to the movies -- the metaphorical movie palace of her mind, that is, where she set up 'Rummy' and Cheney as various screen idols and then tossed popcorn at them.

"In her May 9 column, for instance, she scolded the vice president for 'being more Jack Palance than Shane' (whatever that means), and Rumsfeld for resembling a Jack Nicholson character. But that's just Maureen at the movies, fluffy and inane as usual. More remarkable was the deep thinking she attempted at the beginning and end of last month.

"Dowd's May 6 column found her at the White House Correspondents' dinner -- Yay! She went somewhere! -- where she described Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz as 'swanning around in black tie' when they should have been back at work, fixing Iraq. (I don't know where she's been picking up Brit terms like swanning around, by the way, when she hardly ever leaves the office; maybe she's been watching a lot of BBC America.) Wolfowitz narrowly escaped a scolding from Maureen's psychotic schoolmarm persona when he stopped by her table: 'I wanted to snap, "Get back to your desk, Mr. Myopia from Utopia!"'

"That would have showed him, all right."

Writing doesn't get much better than that.

Cathy was also a regular contributor to National Review Online and the Los Angeles Times, but it was her own blog, Cathy's World, where she shone. Her life wasn't easy, as she raised her daughter, Maia, now 18 and a freshman at the University of California at San Diego, essentially by herself after a divorce and on the none-too-generous income of a free-lance writer. But Cathy had a gift for making friends--dozens and dozens of them, including such well-known Los Angeles fellow writers as Mickey Kaus of Slate, Ruth Shalit (formerly of the New Republic), Sandra Tsing Loh of the Atlantic, Bob Sipchen of the Los Angeles Times, and Amy Alkon. These people didn't just like Cathy, they loved Cathy, and during the last few months as Cathy's health failed, they took care of her and Maia, bringing her meals and driving her to the doctor. On Cathy's World, Cathy chronicled the warmth and gregariousness of her life, along with, of course (this being Cathy) many a witty sling and arrow aimed at the politically correct cant that coats nearly all of our public institutions. The fans who filled the combox connected to Maia's last post with their farewells and prayers was a Who's Who of journalistic luminosity: Kathryn Lopez, John Podhoretz, Virginia Postrel, Christopher Hitchens. Both Charlotte Hays and I had the honor of meeting Cathy (and Maia) on one of my trips to Los Angeles and one of her own trips to Washington--what a pleasure.

Cathy blogged and wrote her columns until the very end (her last post, a nice jab at the Weather Channel's grant of star status to Laurie David because--hey, global warming is weather!--came only last week). She used to send around her writings to a long list of e-mail correspondents, including me. One of the last ones--written just a little over two weeks ago--was a terrific Cathy-esque takedown (read her blog version here) of Ben Ehrenreich, underemployed son of Barbara, who wrote a whiny op-ed about the no-frills treatment in Los Angeles's county hospital's emergency room that his girlfriend, who'd never bothered to buy herself health insurance, got after she broke her ankle in New Mexico and then flew to L.A. to get free medical care for it on California taxpayers' dime. Long waits! Not enough chairs in the waiting room! Dirty restrooms! Boo hoo! What do you expect for nothing? (Ben also used his mother's blog--talk about hiding behind the apron--to whine again, about having to make a copayment--boo hoo again!--after his insurance company picked up most of the tab for the appendectomy he himself had had at another Los Angeles hospital, and wondering why the doctors and nurses there didn't work for free. Ben Ehrenreich, scourge of non-socialized medicine.) At any rate, after Cathy had nicely ripped Big Baby Ben to shreds ("The Sorrows of Young Ehrenreich"), I sent her a congratulatory e-mail telling her about my own experiences in a crowded hospital emergency room after breaking my wrist in 2005. Sure, I'd had to wait for hours for treatment, but so what? It was an emergency room!

I didn't hear from Cathy in response to that e-mail, but I knew that her health had started to fail seriously, and I figured that she was in no condition to reply. Then, yesterday, when the announcement appeared on NRO that Cathy had checked into the hospital for what was clearly the last time, I clicked onto her blog hoping for some news--and discovered that she had posted my e-mail! I burst into tears. I am so grateful that in her very last weeks of life, I was able to amuse her, just a little.

Gosh, we'll miss you, Cathy. We need your voice so much in a world that grows steadily more insane. You fought a magnificent fight that we the living can only hope to carry on in your name.

Have Yourself a Derby-licious Christmas

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 11:49:00 EST

Another break from Yule vacation because I'd almost forgot my annual link to John Derbyshire's Christmas carols on National Review Online. This batch isn't quite as sparkly as those from previous years--but there are still laughs aplenty to be had from "Have Yourself a Merry Little Congress," "Rudolph the Red-State Nightmare," and the inimitable "Bimbo Wonderland":

Britney Spears is in Heaven
Now she's got rid of Kevin;
Her bottom is bare,
But she doesn't care
Living in a bimbo wonderland.

Indeed, Derb's wit has inspired me to carve my own Derby-licious carol. It's nowhere near up to the caliber of the Master, but here goes:

Little Drummer Hill

I wrote it way back when, pa rum pum pum pum
That book that's out again, rum pum pum pum
That was in '96, pa rum pum pum pum
Before the Monica fix, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

"It Takes a Village" still, pa rum pum pum pum
Buy my book.

Parents, you can't raise, pa rum pum pum pum
Kids by yourselves these days, pa rum pum pum pum
Let big Dem government, pa rum pum pum pum
Help with entitlement, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Shall I read to you, pa rum pum pum pum,
From my book?

Don't think: "Quelle bore, pa rum pum pum pum
I've heard this all before," pa rum pum pum pum
'Cuz when I'm president, pa rum pum pum pum
I'll lay it on thick as cement, pa rum pum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Please, please buy it now, pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my book.

This is my swan song, I promise! Merry Christmas again, and the ladies of IWF welcome you back to this site on Jan. 2!

And Merry Christmas, D.A. Mike Nifong!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 12:53:00 EST

We interrupt our Yule vacation to give you this this report just in via Drudge:

"Prosecutors dropped rape charges Friday against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a stripper at a team party, a defense attorney said.

"Joseph Cheshire, an attorney for one of the three players, said charges of kidnapping and sexual offense remain in place.

"District Attorney Mike Nifong did not immediately return calls seeking comment."

Yes, if I were Nifong, I'd be pondering a move to the North Pole right now.

Meanwhile, La Shawn Barber is tracking all developments.

Have a Very Merry Incorrect Christmas!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:35:00 EST

And take a break from filling the wassail bowl with Rich Lowry's moving and throught-provoking account of Christmas at the Bulge, as related in Stanley Weintraub's new book "11 Days in December" (that was the horrible Yule of 1944, when our troops, having cracked German-occupied Europe on D-Day, had to fight their way to Germany day by grim day -- and did so with bravery and high spirits, under the leadership of America's toughest general, George S. Patton):

"The tale of the worst Christmas for American soldiers since Valley Forge, as Weintraub puts it, is especially resonant with American troops again in harm's way on Christmas, this time in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they call on the same resources of bravery and perseverance as their forebears.

"The Allied breakout from Normandy in the summer had convinced Gen. Dwight Eisenhower that the war with Germany would be over by Christmas, but as the Allied advance slowed, the Germans hatched a plan to counterattack through the Ardennes forest. They hoped to punch though the thin Allied lines there and surround four Allied armies. In Hitler's desperate delusion, the Allies in the West would be forced to come to terms. Behind the cover of the thick forest and the horrid weather, the Germans scored initial successes, creating the 'bulge' in the Allies' line.

"American casualties reached at least 80,000 throughout the course of the battle. The troops fought in conditions that would, in other circumstances, have been a winter wonderland, among evergreen trees freshly covered in snow. American troops suffered frostbite, and the inclement weather favored the Germans, delaying reinforcements and neutralizing American air superiority.

"Soldiers who were lucky created makeshift Christmas trees by hanging grenades on pine trees. But GIs who were captured by the Germans were packed into boxcars in unsanitary conditions and got almost nothing to eat. 'They filled the time wanly singing carols,' Weintraub writes. 'The Germans complained that it kept them awake and threatened to shoot if the songs didn't cease.'

"'At the front, German loudspeakers broadcast across the lines, 'How would you like to die for Christmas?' Americans didn't intimidate so easily. One American soldier in the encircled city of Bastogne commented to another, 'They?ve got us surrounded -- the poor bastards.' When a German commander demanded the surrender of the Americans at Bastogne, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe famously responded in a note, 'To the German Commander: 'Nuts!'"

In his diary, Patton wrote on Christmas Day: "A clear, cold, Christmas, lovely weather for killing Germans, which seems a bit queer seeing Whose birthday it is." Persistence paid off; by early January, the Germans were in retreat and the Allies were moving to the Rhine.

It's a wonderful story, and something to be pondered for the sake of our brave troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who won't be home for Christmas this Christmas. Say a holiday prayer for them between the caroling and the feasting and the opening of presents.

And have a prosperous and healthy '07. The ladies of the IWF hope to see you back here on Jan. 2.

How Dare Laura Bush Keep Her Cancer a Secret for a Month!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 11:30:00 EST

I just love it when feminist female journalists try to prove that they can ask really tough questions -- just like the guys! Here they are hounding White House press spokesman Tony Snow over the fact that First Lady Laura Bush had a skin cancer removed from her shin last month -- and didn't immediately go public with it (Thanks, Michelle Malkin--and here's the video):

Q. And she didn't feel any obligation as a person of public status to talk about this?

MR. SNOW: No, again, there are any number of -- this is a room full of public people who tend not -- and I know you say, wait a minute, I'm different than the First Lady. Well, no, she's a private citizen. And the fact is, she is entitled to her medical privacy. And, again, it's no big deal. In this case, it's just not a big deal.

Q. May I follow on that? The President is also a private citizen, as well as being the President. So --

MR. SNOW: Well, he's an elected official. It's different.

Q. He's an elected official and a private citizen. You can make the same claims of a number of people who have public lives. Mrs. Bush has made herself part of this party and this White House's very public face. So my question is, if this were to be something that is a big deal, would the White House feel obliged to share that with the public?

[snip]

Q. Going back to Mrs. Bush, it seems that there are two things going on, in terms of not informing the public and the press. Which was it, was it that it was medical privacy that was the reason for not informing us, or was it that it was no big deal?

MR. SNOW: It was medical privacy, but also what we're trying to do is to console you with the notion that, in addition, it was no big deal.

Q. So there was a conscious decision that, okay, we're not going to tell anybody because this is medical privacy, this is something for us, it's not for --

MR. SNOW: Well, I don't know, if you'll be happy to share all your private medical information, maybe we can change it around. But I don't think that's appropriate, nor does the First Lady. She's got the same privacy rights when it comes to her medical information that you and I do.

Q. But was the decision made not to share it?

MR. SNOW: Yes, in the sense -- let me put it this way: It never occurred to anybody that this would be a big deal. It never occurred -- but suddenly everybody is --

Q. First it was described as a sore, and now, a month-and-a-half later, it's revealed that it's cancer. So there was one story out there that's been corrected.

MR. SNOW: Do you understand -- if you've been -- there are literally millions of Americans who have been through this, and you can ask them whether they thought this was a big deal or not. It was quickly diagnosed. They said, the sore is not going away, we're going to take a look at it. They did. They did a biopsy, they found out it was a squamous cell cancer and they removed it. They did local anesthetic; they removed it.

Q. But the White House might have had an interest in correcting the record when bad information was out there.

And on and on and on and on.

And here, again thanks to Michelle, is Pirate Cove's link to the warm and sympathetic response of the left to Mrs. Bush's cancer diagnosis.

I Want to Sell My Home and Go to "Homeless Court"

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 11:01:00 EST

Let's say you've been issued a bunch of traffic tickets that you never got around to paying. Where would you rather end up? Regular court or "homeless court"?

"Homeless court" is an idea cooked up by lawyers and judges in California that allows people who run up tickets, arrest warrants, and even citations for small-scale crimes to never, ever have to pay the fines or go to jail--as long as they're homeless. Check into a shelter, and a raft of attorneys and social workers will get those infractions just washed away. The theory is that you can't afford to pay the fines anyway, so why bother levying them? And it's cruel to send people to jail.

Call me a gal with a heart of stone, but why should homeless people get a better deal from the criminal justice system than I would? Isn’t justice supposed to be blind? If I had a bunch of traffic tickets I'd flipped off until the fines snowballed, it wouldn't be easy for me to pay them, either, what with all my bills. Why can't I get a free pass from the justice system, too?

And some of those offenses for which you can win a get-out-of-jail card if you're homeless aren't activities I'd like to encourage. Here's a report from the California Bar Journal:

"Homeless people often wind up with numerous citations for so-called 'quality of life' offenses -- illegal camping, for example, or urinating in public, advocates say. Left unresolved, the citations snowball into warrants and costly fines that a homeless person could never pay.

"Such unresolved legal problems can keep a homeless person from getting a job, housing, a driver's license and, in some cases, public benefits. 'It kind of ends up being a glass ceiling for the ones in recovery,' said Superior Court Judge Skip Staley, a homeless court judge in Kern County."

I say tough tomatoes. Why should someone who uses parks and public sidewalks as a lavatory get to collect a welfare check at taxpayer expense? And doesn't any "recovery" process from whatever problems you might have involve facing up to the fact that you've done something wrong and should pay the price for it?

Here's how homeless court works:

"The process begins with referrals from shelters and treatment programs. A court clerk searches the defendants' records for active cases. Negotiations take place. And proposed agreements are set. [A public defender] then briefs the participants on the process. No one will go to jail, they are told. Then, in court, the judge praises each participant for his or her accomplishments and, roughly 90 percent of the time, dismisses the case."

I should be so lucky.

There's more:

"Advocates say homeless courts make economic sense as well. "It makes sense because every one of these clients isn't a person who's out there picking up small cases and failing to appear on warrants,' [another judge] said. ’That?s an expense for all of us.’

"Others point to jail costs. In San Diego, for example, a day in jail will cut $50 off of an unpaid fine, Binder says. But it also costs the system up to $90 to keep that person in jail and $400 or more if mental health services are required."

In other words, running a criminal justice system is expensive, so let?s not even bother. Think how much it costs to keep murderers in prison for life, and how much we could save if we processed them through homeless court, too.

Ah, liberal-nomics.

"Dear Professor: My Dog Ate My Homework"

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:11:00 EST

Courtesy of Rod Dreher comes this column for Town Hall by Mike S. Adams, criminology professor at the University of North Carolina's Wilmington campus, where he's apparently the only conservative prof. on an ultra-politically correct and "sensitive" campus. It's an open letter to one of his students:

"Dear (name deleted):

I received your message indicating surprise and disappointment with your final grade this semester. In your message, you said 'I did miss several days in your class. I did not mean to miss but I was just going through so much this semester with a death in my family, my house got robbed, fired from my job for being 10 minutes late and my good friend died so i [sic] am sorry for that.'"

Read Mike's very politically incorrect and insensitive response, especially after he looks up his records and discovers that the kid actually missed 28 sessions of his class. You'll die laughing.

Study Shows That 1960s Flower Children Had....Premarital Sex!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 10:49:00 EST

Reader Erin alerts us to this report just relased by the Guttmacher Institute indicating that 95 percent of Americans have had sex before marriage:

"The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

"'This is reality-check research,' said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. 'Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades.'"

I don't know what this study is supposed to prove, since it seems to make no effort to distinguish between people who have had premarital sex just once, say with the people they were engaged to, and people who have had so many partners that they've lost count.

Furthermore, what's this business about "even...women born in the 1940s"--implying that they come from a different era? When did the Sexual Revolution begin? Let's say it began in 1963, with the widespread marketing of the Pill. A woman born in 1940 would have been 23 that year, so why is it surprising that she, along with everyone else hit between the eyes by the Sexual Revolution, would have dabbled in premarital sex?

Or let's say the Sexual Revoluton didn't begin until the Summer of Love in 1967, or the Summer of Woodstock Nation in 1969. That means our woman born in 1940 would have been 27 and 29 respectively. Still plenty of time for plenty of sex!

Another day, another dumb, pointless study.

Kofi Annan's New York Survival Guide: Try Low-Income Housing

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:07:00 EST

Claudia Rosett reports this in the New York Sun (hat tip: Captain Ed Morrissey):

"As Secretary-General Annan prepares to leave his post at the United Nations, a mystery is surfacing surrounding his apartment on Roosevelt Island, subsidized by New York taxpayers, which is still in use by the family of his brother, Kobina Annan.

"The apartment was where Mr. Annan and his wife lived before 1997, when he became secretary-general. The Roosevelt Island home is part of an estate of low-rent state-regulated housing. For years, the Annans saved considerable sums by occupying an apartment meant to help financially strapped low- to moderate-income New York families.

"One question Mr. Annan has never addressed is why he and his wife felt comfortable availing themselves of this generous arrangement. Another is how it is that, since Mr. Annan and his wife left that Roosevelt Island apartment 10 years ago to move into the rent-free residence on Sutton Place supplied to the secretary-general, their former low-rent apartment was handed over to be occupied by the family of Mr. Annan's brother.

"This kind of apartment, part of a state-regulated housing development program called Mitchell-Lama, is subject to strict eligibility requirements, involving family size and financial ceilings on combined family income. There is also a requirement that the leaseholder make continuous use of the apartment as a primary residence."

As Claudia comments:

"[T]the issue is pertinent because Kofi Annan, whose wife comes from one of Sweden's wealthier families, has spent years lecturing Americans on how the well-heeled have obligations to those less fortunate. Those low- to moderate-income New York families for whom such accommodation was built face a four-year waiting list."

So far, no comment from Mr. Oil for Food R Us.

It Takes a Hillary Clinton to Recycle Her Tired Old Book

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 10:36:00 EST

Wonder what life would be like under "President" Hillary Clinton? It would be partying like it's 1996.

For Hillary's about to re-release her 10-year-old book "It Takes a Village," just in time to prime herself for you know what. There won't be anything new in the book, just the same old big-government bromides as Hillary declares over and over, "It takes a village to raise a child." That's an old African proverb that, translated into modern English, means, "It takes a big government to raise your child for you." You know, taxpayer-subsiidized, bureaucrat-staffed day-care centers on every corner--just like in France!

Amanda B. Carpenter summarizes the book for Human Events Online:

"She suggested in her chapter 'Kids Don't Come With Instructions' that 'radio and television stations could broadcast childcare tips between programs, songs, and talk show diatribes - videos with scenes of common-sense baby care-how to burp an infant, what to do when soap gets in his eyes, how to make a baby with an earache comfortable - could be running continuously in doctors' offices, clinics, hospitals, motor vehicle offices, or any place where people have to gather and wait.'"

Isn't that a wonderful idea? Another of Hillary's 1990s plans was to have the "village" censor the Internet:

"A year after the first release of 'It Takes a Village,' Hillary discussed the Internet's role as a rumor mill in a White House press conference as First Lady. Of that, she said she 'didn't about a clue about what we're going to do legally, regulatorily [sic], technologically' about the Internet 'there are a number of serious issues without any kind of editing or gate-keeping function [on the Internet].'"

Amanda comments:

"By slapping a new introduction on her tired package of failed liberal daydreams, Hillary is putting lipstick on the pig of the fact she's devoid of any fresh ideas to take on the campaign trail."

Of course, I'd be even more worried if Hillary actually dreamed up some fresh ideas.

And You Thought Co-Ed Bathrooms in College Dorms Were Weird

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:13:00 EST

How about co-ed bedrooms?

"Harvard is considering making its dorm rooms gender-neutral -- meaning brainiacs of both sexes would be able to bunk together -- a spokesman for the Ivy League university told the [Boston] Herald yesterday....

"'The discussion about gender-neutral facilities is an ongoing one. There are already gender-neutral suites, floors and entryways,' [Harvard spokesman Robert] Mitchell said. 'And wherever possible, we have created gender-neutral single occupancy bathrooms. (The dorm policy change) is something that is on the table.'"

The co-ed rooms were the brainchild of some Harvard students (wouldn't you know?) who pointed out that Clark University in nearby Worcester, Mass., has co-ed rooms in its co-ed dorms, so why not Harvard?

"'They had a very good rationale,’ said Dean of Students Denise Darrigrand. ’(The current policy) doesn't acknowledge the fact that some people are gay. The new policy opens up options for people to live with someone with whom they are compatible. And, given other universities' experience with this, the reality is men and women who do choose to room together usually aren't dating.'"

We hope. Next at Harvard: Co-ed shower stalls.

Only at the National Organization for Women

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 09:57:00 EST

From a NOW press release:

"The United Nations once again has failed to elect a woman Secretary-General, despite the fact that many qualified women leaders had been identified as potential candidates and thousands of women’s rights activists sent messages urging U.N. Security Council members to select a woman."

It's a Wonderful Capitalist Life

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 13:07:00 EST

Practically every Christmas I shed huge, sentimental tears when "It's a Wonderful Life" comes on television--as it does every Christmas, 'cuz it's in the public domain (it's on NBC tomorrow at 8 p.m.). It's Frank Capra's 1946 movie about the small-town banker George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart at the top of his game), who tries to commit suicide on Christmas Eve when he's suspected of embezzlement (the real villain is his banking rival, the icy-hearted Mr. Potter). George is reminded by an angel how much he means to the residents of his town, Bedford Falls, who owe their homes and community to the loans he makes them at small profit to himself.

Lately though, I'd been feeling guilty about my attachment to "Wonderful Life," because also every Christmas there's an essay in some conservative publication or other suggesting that George is an impractical fool who confuses business with sentiment, and the real hero of the movie ought to be Mr. Potter, whose hard-headedness about money creates more prosperity for Bedford Falls than George's low-interest home loans ever could. These essays are similar to the depressing Scrooge-Is-Good essays about Dickens? "A Christmas Carol" that you also read in conservative publications at Christmastide, in which the tightwad Ebenezer garners praise for creating jobs, making his employees get to work on time (that means you, Bob Cratchitt!), and declining to hand out his money to the undeserving poor ("Are there no workhouses?")--in contrast to, say, old Mr. Fezziwig, who squanders shareholders' assets on Yuletide parties for his employees.

But now--who says it's not the season of good cheer? Right Wing Trash comes to my rescue (hat tip: Kathy Shaidle) with a post defending "It's a Wonderful Life" as not just a good movie but a good capitalist movie. Here, he describes the scenes in which the angel, Clarence, shows George what life in his town would be like without him:

"George finds himself in a world where he never existed. There's no Bedford Falls. There is only the new town of Pottersville. You know Pottersville, too. It's like the New York City that was envisioned by the dolt who was mayor before Rudy Giuliani. It's the kind of cesspool that comes from folks who believe that sex shops give a community some character.

"There's nothing wrong with a little red-light district. The problem is that Pottersville is nothing but pool halls, strip joints, and pawnshops. Leftists used to get offended when we'd note that they'd rather live in Pottersville. Nowadays, they tend to make that point themselves. It's a hipster fantasy. The people we see living in Pottersville are miserable. They have no hope for a better life. They don't believe in angels, either.

"And there are only two kinds of women in Pottersville: prostitutes and uptight old-maid librarians. The place practically invents modern Women's Studies.

"Why does this story take place at Christmastime? Because director Frank Capra understood that Mr. Potter was a great Christmas villain. George Bailey is saved by the financial freedom of others. Christmas villains are always against people getting to spend their own money. Burgermeister Meisterburger of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town hates toys and forbids anyone to sell them. How The Grinch Stole Christmas is self-explanatory....

"It's A Wonderful Life is all about money. It's all about gifts. And it's all about Sam Wainwright. He's an old industrialist pal of George's who has the money to save both Bedford Falls and George Bailey. The character's barely on the periphery of the plot, but Wainwright is the film's true force for Good."

Yes, and speaking of the Grinch who stole Christmas in Cuba for nearly 30 years until the pope came for a visit in 1998, Kathy also links to this essay by the U.K.'s Peter Hitchens on the liberals who demonized the late Augusto Pinochet but just loooove Fidel Castro, even though Castro's dictatorial brutality makes that of Pinochet?s look amateurish by comparison, and who, as even the Washington Post admits, is about to leave his country an economic basket case, in contrast to the thriving and democratic Chile of today.

My, What Big Ears You Have, Mr. Senator

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 11:58:00 EST

The Other Charlotte blogs today on Sen. Barack Obama, the new Dem heartthrob who has no there there. Our blogger friend Bookworm also writes about the existential nothingness that is the Illinois senator, as do John Podhoretz and Dick Morris.

But I can't worry too much, because I couldn?t stop laughing at this:

First, Maureen Dowd writes, way last October, and way buried at the bottom of her New York Times column:

"He's intriguingly imperfect: His ears stick out, he smokes, and he's written about wrestling with pot, booze and 'maybe a little blow' as a young man.

Uh-oh--and not about that youthful marijuana, juice, and crack cocaine experimentation, either. Here's Obama, nearly two months later, this past Sunday, in fact (the guy not only has the ears but the memory of an elephant, it seems):

"After his press conference, he headed toward New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and chided her -- in a kidding way -- for a comment in the 12th of 14 paragraphs in an Oct 21 column. She wrote that Obama's 'ears stick out.'

"'I just want to put you on notice,' he said.

"'I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears.'"

And here's Rush Limbaugh, listening to the tape of said "kidding" reproval of MoDo:

"Obama, after the speech, made a beeline for Maureen Dowd who was in the audience to tell her that he didn't appreciate her writing about his big ears. Now, there's a lot of noise here and it's very muddy. I'll translate it for you, but here's how it sounded.

"OBAMA (off mic): You talked about my ears, and I just want to put you on notice: I?m very sensitive about -- What I told them was, I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears."

"DOWD (purring): We're trying to toughen you up."

And here?s what Rush has to say:

"Well, if he's sensitive -- stop to think about this. This is a man being lauded as the savior of the country, a presidential candidate ready to be anointed, and he can't handle being teased about his big ears? He goes out to Maureen Dowd and says, I am putting you on notice? Is that a threat? I want to put you on notice?

"Can you imagine, like I said yesterday, let?s say something about me -- I'm very sensitive about whatever it is, X, and the papers write about it and make fun of it. Can you imagine if I sought out Maureen Dowd or anybody and said, 'You know, I?m going to put you on notice. I've been teased about that ever since I was a kid, and I don't like it.' That would be the whole column the next day about how thin-skinned I am, how I can't take it, this and that, and I am a complainer and a whiner and I was trying to influence objective journalists and so forth. But instead, Mo Do says, 'We're just trying to toughen you up.' But this is revealing at a lot of levels. It is an overt threat to go out and say, 'I'm putting you on notice.' I wonder what would happen if McCain did that. McCain, 'You don't say that about me! I'm putting you on notice, you hear, sister, you hear?'

"Can you imagine what the reaction would be if any Republican went up or any conservative went up to a member of the media and said, 'I'm putting you on notice right now.'"

And here's what I have to say to the sensitive senator who would like to run a country now embroiled in a difficult war on terrorism: "Ears stick out! Ears stick out! Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, na nyeah, nyeah!"

The Middle Class--Turns Out It's Not Vanishing After All

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 12:15:00 EST

Via Fausta comes this insightful article by economist David R. Henderson of the Hoover Institution:

"How often have you heard that the vast majority of families' incomes in the United States are rising little or not at all, that the middle class is shrinking, that real wages are stagnating, that the top 20%, or 5%, or 1% are getting the lion's share of the gains in the U.S. economy, that average CEO pay is getting to be a couple of orders of magnitude larger than average people's pay, or that mobility across income groups has declined? Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has made a good part of his living credulously repeating most of these claims. Wall Street Journal reporter David Wessel has also often written long articles laying out some of these claims. It seems that not a month has gone by in the last few years that a major respected newspaper hasn't made such statements as if they were well-established facts."

Henderson's article is actually a review of fellow economist Alan Reynolds' new book, "Income and Wealth." There, Reynolds picks apart the data regularly cited by Krugman and his epigones,especially a report by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez containing the oft-cited statistic that the median family income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans fell between 1973 and 2000. As Henderson notes, that's true only if you count as a separate "family" your college-student offspring who work summers as lifeguards:

"As for the Piketty-Saez study that Krugman and many others have cited, Reynolds points out just how implausible their data are as a measure of family income. Piketty and Saez write that in 2000, 'the median income, as well as the average income for the bottom 90% of tax units is quite low, around $25,000.' Note the use of the term 'tax units.' 'Tax units' are not the same as families. In my family, for example, we have two tax units: my wife and I file our taxes jointly and our daughter files on her own. But that has not stopped people, including Krugman, from writing as if 'tax unit' and 'family' are synonymous. Reynolds points out that if tax units were the same as families, highly implausible implications would follow. Given the meaning of the word 'median,' 45 percent of families (half of 90 percent) would have had to make less than $25,000 in 2000. But U.S. Census data show that for 2000, median family income was $50,732, which means that we know, to the extent we can trust Census data, that 50 percent of U.S. families made more than $50,732 in 2000. That means that the 5 percent of the family income distribution not accounted for (100 percent minus 50 percent minus 45 percent) would have had to be the people with incomes above $25,000 but below $50,732. While that is mathematically possible, it is empirically virtually impossible. The problem stems from the equation of 'tax unit' with family.

"How about the 'vanishing middle class'? To say that the middle class is vanishing, one must have a definition of the middle class. A sensible person would probably define it as the group of people in the middle, say the middle quintile or the middle three quintiles. But that?s not how the commentators who have made the claim have defined the middle class. Instead, they take the group of people making income within a fixed range in inflation-adjusted dollars, say, between $35,000 and $50,000, and show that the percent of the overall number of families within this range is falling. In commenting on this way of defining the middle, Reynolds points out an obvious but, nevertheless, often completely overlooked fact:

"'Such a fixed definition ensures that the proportion of households in the middle group must decline with a rise in general prosperity, because rising prosperity causes a rising percentage of families to earn more than $50,000.? (emphasis his)"

Moral: It's probably not a good idea to believe everything you read by Paul Krugman.

Washington Post to Hire La Shawn Barber? Sure, When Pigs Fly

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:38:00 EST

On Sunday, the Washington Post's ever-so-politically correct "ombudsman," Deborah Howell, wrote this column:

"The Post needs more opinion writers and columnists who are of the female persuasion or are minorities. Overwhelmingly, Post columnists are white guys. Some are among the paper's best columnists, but more diversity would make The Post a richer paper.

"Numerical equality is not what readers look for, but women and minorities want to see themselves well represented in the news and opinion pages of The Post. This is a remarkably diverse region, and that should be better reflected in columnist jobs."

Howell went on to present a tedious list of the sex and ethnicity of every single Post columnist--although, of course, ethnicity meant only blacks and people with Spanish surnames, with everyone else being lumped together under "white."

That prompted the award-winning blogger La Shawn Barber to fire off an e-mail to Howell saying, hey, if you want "diversity," why don't you hire me?

"More women and minorities - that's noble but very predictable. Might I add a third category? Why not add more conservative writers to the roster? If you want diversity of opinion, as your column title indicates, it will require the paper to publish pieces written from a non-liberal worldview, one that differs from the view of the current editorial board and stable of writers.....

"And the Post can begin with my voice. First, I'm black. BAM! Second, I'm a woman. BOOM! Best of all, I'm a conservative. ZING! By hiring me as an op-ed writer, the good liberals folks at the Post would kill three diversity birds with one proverbial stone. How cool is that?

"Ms. Howell, the Washington Post needs diversity of thought, ideology and worldview, not just of race or sex. Skin deep-only differences aren't very interesting to anyone but liberals. The real test of tolerance is how well you tolerate differences of viewpoint.

"I can't speak for anyone else, but I care more about reading articles written by someone whose opinions and values - not race or sex - are similar to my own."

So--do you think the Post will be offereing La Shawn an opinion-writing job anytime soon? Maybe when the porkers strap on jet fuselages. Howell’s response so far has consisted of an e-mail to La Shawn promising to "pass" her "name" on to the Post’s op-ed editor.

Protocol of the Elders of Jimmy

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:04:00 EST

This from National Review editor Rich Lowry on America's weirdest ex-president (hat tip; Kathy Shaidle):

"Incredibly, given his media presence, Carter thinks that he is being silenced by shadowy forces. He makes this bizarre claim: 'My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment.' Does Carter keep track of which schools have lots of Jews? And who does he think is keeping him from speaking at them?

"Just as creepy is a passage in the book about Christians in Galilee who 'complained to us that their holy sites and culture were not being respected by Israeli authorities -- the same complaint heard by Jesus and his disciples almost 2,000 years earlier.' As New Yorker writer Jeffrey Goldberg notes, 'There are, of course, no references to "Israeli authorities" in the Christian Bible. Only a man who sees Israel as a lineal descendent of the Pharisees could write such a sentence.'"

And see The Other Charlotte’s comments here.

I May Look Like a Guy, But Hey--I'm a Girl!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 15:50:00 EST

From my Department of No Comment: This Slate piece by Yale law professor Kenji Yoshino:

"Last week, New York City's Board of Health scuttled a proposal that would have given people more freedom to change the sex on their birth certificate. The proposed plan would have been the first in the country to permit individuals to declare a gender without making any anatomical changes.....

"As a New York Times article observed, the new law sought to reflect a better understanding of the transgender community. Many transgender individuals do not have the funds to undergo sex-reassignment surgery, which has been estimated to cost between $10,000 and $20,000. Other people cannot have surgery for health reasons. Perhaps most importantly, many do not feel they need to have surgery to redefine their gender, which they understand to be more than the sum of their physical parts....

"But the health department, surprisingly, did not anticipate the wave of practical concerns that surfaced when the plan was publicized. These included the worry that the plan would conflict with rules adopted by New York state, or possible new federal rules, concerning identification documents. Reservations were also voiced by institutions like hospitals, jails, and schools, which routinely segregate according to sex."

Yes, how would you like to be, oh, say, dying of cancer in a hospital bed, and you discovered that your "roommate" possessed some anatomical features that that looked a bit different from your own?

But mind you, the ever-so-progressive Prof. Yoshino may pay lip service to your "practical concerns," but his actual feelings are as follows:

"There is little evidence that transgender individuals present a security risk to women, while there is a great deal of evidence that transgender individuals themselves are at immense risk if they are not given accommodations. To the extent that privacy concerns rest on a fear of sexual objectification, they rely on a specious assumption of universal heterosexuality."

Translation into English: We don't care how you, the dying patient, might feel during your last hours on earth. "Transgender rights" are all about us and how we feel.

Hey, thanks, New York, for the rare show of sanity.

Oh No! "Apocalypto" Reveals Native Americans Weren't Very Nice!

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:54:00 EST

Ooh--I just love that Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" is not only a box-office smash but is twisting the knickers of the oh-so-politically correct college anthropologists who have spent decades promoting the legend that the Maya Indians of Mexico and Central America were peaceful stargazers who spent their days weaving blankets and worshipping Grandmother Willow--until the dead white colonial male European colonials came along and wrecked everything.

Here is anthropologist Traci Ardren wringing her hands at Archaeology magazine:

"I know the Maya practiced brutal violence upon one another, and I have studied child sacrifice during the Classic period. But in 'Apocalypto,' no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities. Instead, Gibson replays, in glorious big-budget technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserve, in fact they needed, rescue. This same idea was used for 500 years to justify the subjugation of Maya people and it has been thoroughly deconstructed and rejected by Maya intellectuals and community leaders throughout the Maya area today.... To see this same trope about who indigenous people were (and are today?) used as the basis for entertainment (and I use the term loosely) is truly embarrassing. How can we continue to produce such one-sided and clearly exploitative messages about the indigenous people of the New World?"

Yes, let's have some "Maya intellectuals and community leaders" (that's academic-speak for "Marxist scholars and agitators at Mexican universities") tell us how to think. Earth to Ardren: The Maya were "subjugated" long before the Spanish arrived after their civilization collapsed in 900 A.D. (so much for their "achievements in science" and "engineering feats") and they were conquered by successive indigenous groups that were even more into "brutal violence" and "child sacrifice" than they were. The Spanish didn?t get there until 600 years after there was no more Mayan civilization.

Now for some more Apocalypto-ic anthropological rantings, in this article from the Washington Post in which scholars fret that Mel Gibson is damaging the Mayan image:

"The main gripe, says [Brown University's anthropoligist Stephen] Houston, is that 'Apocalypto' will make a bad impression on the general public. 'For millions of people this might be their first glimpse of the Maya,' he says....

"'We have no evidence of large numbers of slaves,' [University of California-Riverside anthropologist Karl] Taube says. Rather, most Mayanists suspect the pyramids and the like were built by free Maya who saw it as a civic duty, perhaps forced upon them, labor as tax, or perhaps voluntary, as the medieval cathedrals were built by European guilds."

Yeah, sure. Note that none of the professors denies that the Mayans routinely tore out the hearts of their defeated enemies along with inventing writing and crafting nice works of art. So what? The Nazis did great movies and graphic design.

Washington Post: We Heart Child Molesters

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 11:44:00 EST

When the news broke in October that since-forced-to-resign Republican Rep. Mark Foley had been sending sexually explicit e-mails to 17-year-old male congressional pages, the reaction from our friends the Democrats consisted of outrage and calls not just for Foley's head but those of the entire congressional leadership. Vide Daily Kos:

"I was just shocked by what I found. I am especially upset by the dismissive attitudes I found on the web from those who know about Congressman Foley's bad behavior in Washington."

I agreed with Kos. I was shocked, too, and I was dismayed by efforts by some conservatives to excuse Foley's conduct by pointing out that Gerry Studds, the late openly gay Democratic congressman, had traveled to Europe with a 17-year-old page and received nothing more severe than a censure from his fellow Dems. Sorry, but Foley was a bad apple, and what he did (along with what Studds did) was shameful, a violation of his professional obligation to job subordinates and also the trust that parents of minor teen-agers place in Congress when they send their children to Washington to serve.

But now it appears that the outrage of liberals over sexual overtures to minor teen-agers is highly selective. When a conservative does it, it's unspeakably shocking. When a liberal does it, it's, um, OK. It's--and I quote--a matter of "precocious adolescents,...the adults who desire them, and...the relationships that result when these two volatile elements combine."

That's Philip Kennicott, Washington Post arts critic and Bush administration arch-foe, writing about "The History Boys," the arty anti-Margaret Thatcher (but of course) silm from Britain, made from a play by Alan Bennett) about the oh-so-lovable but serially groping prep-school history teacher who comes a cropper Thatcher becomes prime iminister and the school starts expecting him to teach some history rather than the art of fondling students while they are riding captive on the back of your motorcyle. Believe it or not, Mr. Let Me Feel Your Chips is supposed to be the hero of this film rather than a candidate for abrupt dismissal and a lengthy prison term.

But hey--anything in the service of dissing Margaret Thatcher is just fine with Philip Kennicott:

"The scandal and the play both focus attention on that fraught period of late adolescence, when teenagers are sexually aware, often sexually active, but not yet fully enfranchised members of society.

"The scandal and the play also force consideration of a question perhaps more troubling in American society than British society: How to deal with precocious adolescents, with adults who desire them, and with the relationships that result when these two volatile elements combine?

"Bennett stacks the deck mostly but not entirely in the favor of [history teacher] Hector, who is charismatic, witty and erudite. Hector's also taking liberties -- reaching back for the occasional grope while driving a boy on his motorcycle -- that the boys have come to accept as one of their teacher's eccentricities. The boys don't particularly enjoy it and they casually banter about what they consider Hector's pathetic personal life. But they also love him, and not only do they dutifully submit to the groping, in the end, they defend Hector when outside (and more puritanical) forces threaten his cozy relationship with them....

"That acceptance of a gray area about sexuality involving late adolescents is all but impossible in this country, where the sexual predator has become an absolute category, a universal figure for evil and nightly fodder for pursuit and punishment on programs such as "Law and Order: SVU." The collective response from society -- concerned that sexual abuse is being ignored -- is a vigilance so strict that there is no room for exceptions of any sort, even if the abused are all-but adults and don't feel particularly victimized."

And there's this:

"Bennett, in an interview in an English newspaper, said (of the sexual encounters between Hector and his students): 'I think I've been criticized for not taking this seriously enough. I'm afraid I don't take that very seriously if they're 17 or 18.'"

In other words, liberals think the sexual manhandling of teen-agers by adults in positions of power over them is just fine, as long as the boys are "sexually precocious" (whatever that means)--and if you happen not to agree, why you're just a puritanical American who can't handle the nuances of man-boy love! There's an exception, of course, if the perp happens to be a Republican--and remember that Foley, disgusting as his behavior was, did nothing more than drool over the internet at his young finds.

Kennicott, by the way, is outraged at the wildly popular "To Catch a Predator," not only because it uses adults posing as children to catch online molesters (we're supposed to sit back and wait for these creeps to bother our children before we do anything about them) but also because it doesn’t buy into that that Euro-sophisticated approach to adult-teen sex that we puritanical Americans just don't get:

"The American drama of sexual abuse, played out almost weekly in hysterical terms on 'To Catch a Predator,' has very little room for the larger continuum of the sexual interactions between adults and youth suggested by Bennett's play. NBC's popular but scabrous program, in which adults impersonate highly sexualized children in order to entrap other adults into sexual encounters, eliminates any actual children or youth from the equation."

The "larger contiuum of the sexual interactions between adults and youth." The Washington Post--a family newspaper.

Britney Says She Went "Too Far"--Ya Think?

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 11:53:00 EST

Last week Carol expressed the hope that Americans would stigmatize Britney Spears for letting the world know about her penchant for pantyless partying. Fear not, Carol, it would seem that Americans are doing just that, as Britney becomes the most searched-for person on the internet. Los Angeles County's family-services agency has reportedly been trying to contact Britney, the mother of two small sons, 1-year-old Sean Preston and 3-month-old Jaden James. She was visited by family-services personnel after being seen driving with Sean on her seatbelt-free lap and again after Sean fell out of his high chair and injured his head. (In a third Sean-accident, Britney dropped the baby head-first onto a New York sidewalk after tripping on her 3-inch platform heels, but fortunately one of Brit's bodyguards caught the infant before he landed).

And the New York Post reports this:

"Three different times, Britney has checked into L.A. hotels like the Viceroy with [gal-pal and fellow skank Paris] Hilton, rather than go home to her sons, who are presumably being watched by her mother.

"Us Weekly reports that [Britney's] father Jamie [Spears] recently had a stern talk with his Britney. The magazine notes, 'He was not happy with her antics . . . He told her that she's a grown woman and needs to act like one, and she's been making bad decisions.'"

Britney (along with Paris and another gal-pal and fellow skank, Lindsay Lohan) also got a dressing-down from Camille Paglia in this interview about the no-knickers phenomenon:

"These girls are lowering themselves to the level of backstreet floozies. It angers me because I fought a bitter fight to get feminism back on track and be pro-sex at the same time. This is degrading the entire pro-sex wing of feminism...."

"I am completely appalled by what these young women are doing because I think that they are cheapening their own image and obliterating all sexual mystery and glamour, which are the heart of the star system....

"These are women who are clearly out of control because the old studio era is over. The studio system...guided and shaped the careers of the young women who it signed up. It maximized their sexual allure by dealing it out in small doses and making sure you don't have -- what has become here -- a situation of anarchy."

And Britney herself has issued an apology, sort of. She's admitted she went "a little too far" in her efforts to recover from her disastrous marriage to Kevin Federline. That's a start, Brit, but it's not quite enough.

Good-bye, Jeane Kirkpatrick

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:54:00 EST

We'll miss this great and stalwart lady of brains and courage who, as Ronald Reagan's U.N. ambassador, coined the phrase "blame America first" to describe the habit of lefties then and now to attribute every evil thing in the world to U.S. capitalism/militarism/philistinism/over-religiosity/hubris.

John Miller at National Review posts this excerpt from Kirkpatrick's most famous speech, at the Republican convention of 1984:

"They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do -- they didn't blame Cuba or the communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians -- they blamed the United States instead.

"But then, somehow, they always blame America first.

"When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the 'blame America first crowd' didn't blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.

"But then, they always blame America first.

"When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn’t blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.

"But then, they always blame America first.

"When Marxist dictators shoot their way to power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don’t blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States policies of 100 years ago.

"But then, they always blame America first.

"The American people know better."

Kirkpatrick has an apt successor in toughness and perspicacity in another U.N. ambassador whose first name also begins with a "J." Here's what Robert Novak has to say about the bullying Democrats determined to get rid of the man some say is the most effective U.N. ambassador we've had in years.

Michael Bloomberg: No Rudy Giuliani

info@iwf.org (Charlotte Allen) — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 11:53:00 EST

When I read that New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, had met last week with zoot-suited cleric Rev. Al "I Believe Tawana" Sharpton over the police slaying of Sean Bell at 4 a.m. outside a strip club under investigation for drug trafficking and underage prostitution, my first thought was: The Rudy Giuliani era is defnitely over. Well, at least Bloomberg declined to attend Bell's funeral, and he denounced the picket signs urging New Yorkers to "kill" some cops by way of reprisal.

Bell, by the way, was no Amadou Diallo, a hard-working Haitian immigrant with no criminal record tragically slain by police in 1999 while reaching for his wallet. The 23-year-old Bell had a record of petty crimes and no known gainful employment, and was also living with the mother of his two children (the strip club was supposedly the venue of Bell's bachelor party, as he was apparently slated to marry said baby momma -- although I have my doubts).

Heather Mac Donald has this fine analysis of the Bell shooting for City Journal:

"The allegation that last weekend's shooting was racially motivated is preposterous. A group of undercover officers working in a gun- and drug-plagued strip joint in Queens had good reason to believe that a party leaving the club was armed and about to shoot an adversary. When one of the undercovers identified himself as an officer, the car holding the party twice tried to run him down. The officer started firing while yelling to the car's occupants: 'Let me see your hands.' His colleagues, believing they were under attack, fired as well, eventually shooting off 50 rounds and killing the driver, Sean Bell. No gun was found in the car, but witnesses and video footage confirm that a fourth man in the party fled the scene once the altercation began. Bell and the other men with him all had been arrested for illegal possession of guns in the past; one of Bell's companions that night, Joseph Guzman, had spent considerable time in prison, including for an armed robbery in which he shot at his victim.

"Nothing in these facts suggests that racial animus lay behind the incident. (Though this detail should be irrelevant, the undercover team was racially mixed, and the officer who fired the first shot was black.) But even more preposterous than the assertion of such animus is the claim by New York's self-appointed minority advocates that the well-being of the minority community is what motivates them....

"Since 1993, 11,353 people have been murdered in New York City. The large majority of victims and perpetrators have been black. Not a single one of those black-on-black killings has prompted protest or demonstrations from the city's black advocates. Sharpton...et al. are happy to let thousands of black victims get mowed down by thugs without so much as a whispered call for 'peace' or 'justice;' it's only when a police officer, trying to protect the public, makes a good faith mistake in a moment of intense pressure that they rise as vindicators of black life. (As for caring about slain police officers, forget about it. Sixteen cops -- including several black policemen -- have been killed since 1999, not one of whom elicited a public demonstration of condolence from the race hustlers.)

"If the city's black advocates paid even a tiny fraction of the attention they pay to shootings by criminals as they pay to shootings by police, they could change the face of the city."

Heather also makes mincemeat out of Sharpton pal Jesse Jackson's (naturally Jackson has jumped into this fray as well) that New York police unfairly focus their law-enforcement efforts on blacks:

"The police have a disproportionate number of interactions with blacks because blacks are committing a disproportionate number of crimes. That fact comes from the testimony of the victims of those crimes, themselves largely black, not from the police. In New York City, blacks committed 62 percent of all murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults from 1998 to 2000, according to victim and witness identification, even though they make up only 25 percent of the city's population. Whites committed 8 percent of those crimes over that period, though they are 28 percent of New York residents. These proportions have been stable for years and remain so today. It's not the 'criminal-justice system' that has broken down for young black males; it's families and other sources of cultural support. Changing the subject and blaming the police just perpetuates the problem."

Now, maybe the police did overreact by firing 50 rounds in Bell's direction, and maybe there was police misconduct during those early-morning hours. But racial pot-stirring by Sharpton, Jackson, and the usual demagogues, along with plenty of breast-beating by the liberal media, aren't going to clear up matters.