Dru Sjodin

My heart goes out to her family and friends. But, frankly, Faithful Reader, would we ever have heard about her — for even a moment — were she not white & pretty & blonde & middle- to upper-class & female?

See "Television's structural biases on display...."

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 12/04/03 09:24:38 PM
Categorized as Media.

Law & Order

A reader writes:

My husband and I have been watching NBC's Law and Order series (up to three versions a week now) for a number of years. We enjoy seeing good prevail over evil in police detective shows.

One series of Law and Order, SVU (Special Victims Unit) featured "Abomination" which turned out to be a whole hour of sympathy for homosexual victims of homophobia. It was complete with an ugly, old hate-spewing preacher and his followers uttering curses at the funeral of the gay victim. It was so "over the top" that I wrote NBC to complain. Do the writers ever consider that they may be creating a backlash against their own pet "victims?"

Two weeks later we watched the Wednesday Law and Order (we had taped it so I don't have the date). It concerned a Geraldo Rivera-type reporter who was shot outside a bar. He was a loud-mouth publicity seeker, who had been embedded in the war and gave away troop movements on TV leading to the death of three US soliders. One of the dead soldiers' comrades was home for a family funeral and was accused of the shooting. It turned out that the reporter had himself shot as a publicity stunt. Yet, he was given many opportunities to insist that he was in the right because he was bringing Americans the truth about the war. The detectives and prosecutors used every occasion to bad-mouth the war and "the Dude at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave."

We now have added "Law and Order" to "The Practice" as shows we will no longer watch. Today I will write another letter to NBC and also to the sponsors of the last show. It may have no effect, but if people begin to turn off politically offensive TV, maybe they will change what they produce. We can hope.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 12/04/03 08:21:02 PM
Categorized as Media.

A Bird's Eye View of the President's Thanksgiving Day

K-Lo blogged this e-mail message at The Corner, this morning:

An Email from a Captain in Iraq

We knew there was a dinner planned with ambassador Bremer and LTG Sanchez. There were 600 seats available and all the units in the division were tasked with filling a few tables. Naturally, the 501st MI battalion got our table. Soldiers were grumbling about having to sit through another dog-and-pony show, so we had to pick soldiers to attend. I chose not to go.

But, about 1500 the G2, LTC Devan, came up to me and with a smile, asked me to come to dinner with him, to meet him in his office at 1600 and bring a camera. I didn't really care about getting a picture with Sanchez or Bremer, but when the division's senior intelligence officer asks you to go, you go. We were seated in the chow hall, fully decorated for thanksgiving when all kinds of secret service guys showed up.

That was my first clue, because Bremer's been here before and his personal security detachment is not that big. Then BG Dempsey got up to speak, and he welcomed ambassador Bremer and LTG Sanchez. Bremer thanked us all and pulled out a piece of paper as if to give a speech. He mentioned that the President had given him this thanksgiving speech to give to the troops. He then paused and said that the senior man present should be the one to give it. He then looked at Sanchez, who just smiled.

Bremer then said that we should probably get someone more senior to read the speech. Then, from behind the camouflage netting, the President of the United States came around. The mess hall actually erupted with hollering. Troops bounded to their feet with shocked smiles and just began cheering with all their hearts. The building actually shook. It was just unreal. I was absolutely stunned. Not only for the obvious, but also because I was only two tables away from the podium. There he stood, less than thirty feet away from me! The cheering went on and on and on.

Soldiers were hollering, cheering, and a lot of them were crying. There was not a dry eye at my table. When he stepped up to the cheering, I could clearly see tears running down! his cheeks. It was the most surreal moment I've had in years. Not since my wedding and Aaron being born. Here was this man, our President, came all the way around the world, spending 17 hours on an airplane and landing in the most dangerous airport in the world, where a plane was shot out of the sky not six days before.

Just to spend two hours with his troops. Only to get on a plane and spend another 17 hours flying back. It was a great moment, and I will never forget it. He delivered his speech, which we all loved, when he looked right at me and held his eyes on me. Then he stepped down and was just mobbed by the soldiers. He slowly worked his way all the way around the chow hall and shook every last hand extended. Every soldier who wanted a photo with the President got one. I made my way through the line, got dinner, then wolfed it down as he was still working the room.

You could tell he was really enjoying himself. It wasn't just a photo opportunity. This man was actually enjoying himself! He worked his way over the course of about 90 minutes towards my side of the room. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to shake a few hands. I got a picture with Ambassador Bremer, Talabani (acting Iraqi president) and Achmed Chalabi (another member of the ruling council) and Condaleeza Rice, who was there with him.

I felt like I was drunk. He was getting closer to my table so I went back over to my seat. As he passed and posed for photos, he looked my in the eye and "How you doin', captain." I smiled and said "God bless you, sir." To which he responded "I'm proud of what you do, captain." Then moved on.

She later blogged a confirmation of its authenticity:

This email was from my brother to our mother and his wife who is in [Wiesbaden]. We have no idea how it 'got out' as we received it Thanksgiving morning. We had heard on the news that the Pres. had visited the airport (where my brother is based with the intel division) and so we (the family) knew we'd soon get an email from him. Sure enough, this one came and my mother read it to us all as we stood around the den. My mother sobbed and the rest of us got very teary-eyed as well... even my 18 year old son.

I had forwarded this to a friend of mine (who is a retired Navy Commander) whom I keep updated on my brother's 'goings on' and he wrote me yesterday that he had received the same email from several of his friends. He was flabbergasted that my brother's email came to him from other sources far and wide. He had not sent it to anyone. Interestingly enough, in the version he sent me the names are edited out with X's. In the version you published, the names were still there... i.e. my nephew.

So see? This is a real letter from a real patriot and soldier who is serving his country per his chosen responsibility. Not all warm and fuzzy sentiments are staged after all. My question remains... how the heck did it get 'out' unless Shelly passed it along to other mil. Personnel in Germany who may have distributed it. Never the less, the point, again, is that this is not a military PR ploy.

Thank you for your time,

Marsha Jefferson
Prairie Grove, Arkansas

See President in Baghdad for Thanksgiving Day.

P.S. You know, we really should not blame them too much, those who are trying to find some way, anyway at all, to make something really rotten out of the president's trip to Baghdad. Much like some extreme conservatives could never admit that Bill Clinton ever did anything good, so some extreme liberals look at whatever George W. Bush does as wrong, simply wrong, because George W. Bush is doing it — period, end of story. In either case, there's something wrong in the head with those people. The big difference, of course, is that the George-Bush-Can-Do-No-Good crowd populates mainstream media, while the Bill-Clinton-Can-Do-No-Good crowd populates the fringes.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 12/04/03 02:47:41 PM
Categorized as International.

"Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in the European Union"

Here is the (formerly) suppressed report on anti-Semitism in Europe in a nice multi-page format.

See The Report the EU Flunkies Don't Want You to See.

(Thanks, Charles.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 12/04/03 07:23:46 AM
Categorized as International.

Hollywood Vacuumheads Meet to Strategize Bush's 2004 Election Victory

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode XXVII

LAT reports, Dec. 3, on the latest left-wing efforts to attack the Bush administration:

It was the kind of evening Hollywood is known for: a gathering of deep-pocketed entertainment industry liberals to discuss a strategy for electing a Democratic president next year.

But as guests arrived at the Beverly Hilton on Tuesday night, the meeting had become a target of conservatives, who attacked it as a symbol of excessive liberal rage toward President Bush.

Campaign finance reform advocates, meanwhile, worried that it exemplified efforts to dodge new campaign finance laws banning unlimited political contributions.

The session — initiated by Laurie David, wife of HBO star Larry David, and co-hosted by actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and 20 others — was an attempt to acquaint the liberals with America Coming Together, an initiative to mobilize Democrats in 17 states that may prove crucial to the outcome of the 2004 presidential race....

Marge Tabankin, a Hollywood political consultant and one of the hosts of Tuesday's meeting, said Republicans "are looking at what the Democrats are doing and they're getting really nervous and they're trying to blow it up. What they're realizing is that this time around, there is likely to be a more level playing field, financially."

If the meeting demonstrated the depth of opposition to the Bush administration among many in Hollywood, it also underscored the hostility many conservatives feel toward what they term the "cultural elite."

Calls and faxes attacking the gathering's sponsors — some of them anti-Semitic — came in from around the country from people who heard about it on conservative talk radio.

But in Los Angeles, the unexpected buzz caused the event to mushroom from 100 people to 230 — prompting the organizers to find a bigger room at the Beverly Hilton and to turn away many people who wanted to come, organizers said.

Among those expected to attend were Christine Lahti, Aaron Sorkin, Rob Reiner, Heather Thomas, producer Paula Weinstein, and "MASH" television star Mike Farrell.

Director Robert Greenwald, a co-host, joked that organizers would have to thank their detractors — "or put them on retainer."

This is elitist cultural Marxism at its hypocritical finest.

Oh, I'm not red-baiting. In case you haven't heard of Marge Tabankin, here's a bit of information on her:

.... During the Vietnam War Tabankin visited Hanoi to offer its totalitarian masters moral support. What else she offered the regime is not on record, at least not in Washington.

Tabankin was also very active in Soviet front organizations and is closely linked to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Washington-based Marxist-Leninist 'think tank' that used to act as a front for the KGB. Tabankin share [sic] the IPS's view that America is the real enemy....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 12/04/03 07:14:39 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.

Jane Fonda's Marxoid Psychobabble

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode XXVI

V is for Vacuous.

Hanoi Jane Fonda is hung up on one letter of the alphabet:

.... It's possible that the extreme, neo-conservative version of Patriarchy which makes up our current Executive branch will over-play its hand and cause the house of cards to collapse. We know that this new "preventive war" doctrine will put us on a permanent war footing. We know there can't be guns and butter, right? We learned that with Vietnam. We know that a Pandora's box has been opened in the Middle East and that the administration is not prepared for the complexities that are emerging. We know that friends are becoming foes and angry young Muslims with no connection to Al Qaeda are becoming terrorists in greater numbers. We know that with the new tax plan the rich will be better off and the rest will be poorer. We know what happens when poor young men and women can only get jobs by joining the military and what happens when they come home and discover that the day after Congress passed the "Support Our Troops" Resolution, $25 billion was cut from the VA budget. We know that already, families of servicemen have to go on welfare and are angry about it.

So, as Eve Ensler says, we have to change the verbs from obliterate, dominate, humiliate, to liberate, appreciate, celebrate. We have to make sure that head and heart can be reunited in the body politic, and relationship and democracy can be restored.

We need to really understand the depth and breadth of what a shift to a new, feminine paradigm would mean, how fundamentally central it is to every single other thing in the world. We win, everything wins, including boys, men, and the earth. We have to really understand this and be able to make it concrete for others so they will be able to see what Feminism reall is and see themselves in it.

So our challenge is to commit ourselves to creating the tipping point and the turning point. The time is ripe to launch a unified national movement, a campaign, a tidal wave, built around issues and values, not candidates.

That's why V-Day, The White House Project and their many allies are partnering to hold a national women's convention somewhere in the heartland, next June of 2004. Its purpose will be to inspire and mobilize women and vagina-friendly men around the 2004 elections and to build a new movement that will coalesce our energies and forces around a politic of caring.

The convention will put forward a fresh, clear, and concise platform of issues, and build the spirit, energy and power base to hold the candidates accountable for them. There will be a diversity of women from across the country who will participate in the mobilization. There will be a special focus on involving young women. There will be a variety of performers and artists acknowledging that culture plays a powerful role in political action. There will be a concurrent Internet mobilization. Women's organizations will be asked to sign on and send representatives to the convention.

There will be a caravan, a rolling tour across the country, of diverse women leaders, celebrities and activists who will work with local organizers to build momentum, sign people up, register them to vote, get them organized and leave behind a tool kit for further mobilization through the election and beyond.

This movement will be a volcano that will erupt in a flow of soft, hot, empathic, breathing, authentic, vagina-friendly, relational lava that will encircle patriarchy and smother it. We will be the flood and we'll be Noah's arc. "V" for Vagina, for vote, for victory.

(Thanks, Bryan.)

P.S. Don't miss What was this skirt smoking?

.... Having gone through the "radical Jane" phase and the "aerobics Jane" phase and the "religious Jane" phase, Jane appears to be trying on a new role - the "bitter man-hating Jane" phase. Also, note the reference to Viet Nam. For Jane, it's always 1968 in America and "good it was to be alive in those days, but bliss to be young." ....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 12/04/03 06:58:16 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.