Misc.

One of the disadvantages of not living in or near a really big city is that NPR is only on half the day, with the other half being devoted to that old school Mexican music where all the songs are to the same polka beat. Anyway, that means that I listen to more right wing radio. I've listened at one point or another to all of them and can't figure out how Sean Hannity got to the top. Love them or hate them, you can at least detect the niche that all the others inhabit. Rush is the founder, Glenn Beck is funny, Michael Medved is brilliant and does pop culture in addition to the regular stuff, Laura Ingraham is a women, Michael Savage is unhinged, Boortz is libertarian and funny as well. But what is Hannity? How did this happen? Someone help me understand.




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In my Stalin book review post, one of the tidbits I forgot to include was that many of the women in Stalin's entourage (the wives of his ministers and the women in his family) were very pushy and vocal with Stalin on all sorts of large and small matters. Their politically astute husbands tried to warn them of the tiger they were teasing, but the women felt they had special access. As years went by and times got bad, Stalin punished most of these women with prison and exile. Let this serve as a warning to all the loudmouth women in my life...





This picture of a young Stalin kind of looks like a mix between Johnny Depp and Keanu Reeves, don't you think?



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Here's a story I heard the other day.

A few months ago, and aide awoke President Bush in the middle of the night and said "Mr. President, we have something of an international crisis on our hands. An hour ago 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq."

President Bush furrowed his brow and he said "Oh no, that's terrible. How many is a Brazilian?"




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I know I'm late to this party, but I thought it was very obnoxious for Attorney General Holder to call us a nation of cowards on race. And no, I'm not one of those people who believes our leaders can never give the nation constructive criticism; in fact I HATE our culture of outrage that grasps at any perceived slight. And I'm open to the fact that we may well be a nation of cowards when it comes to talking about race. But for our FIRST black attorney general, who was appointed by our just-elected FIRST black president to throw that hammer down is a bit of overkill. And I think much of the reason many people are such race cowards is that we've been cowed into silence by the P.C. S.S. (led by the honorable Reverends Jackson and Sharpton). We are only allowed to assess and discuss the wrongs committed by whites, but discussing any committed by blacks is completely off limits and punishable by crucifixion. And this from the yellow coward who signed off on the Marc Rich pardon. Give me a break.