Prayer Request

One of my best friends, Annie, called me last night. She lives in southern California, but we've been friends for 15 years. Her mother, Trish, was just diagnosed with lung cancer, though she has never smoked and AFAIK has always lived a healthy lifestyle. A devout Catholic woman, she's originally from Australia; she married a man from my home town whose mother still lives a few blocks from me. Please say a prayer for my friend Annie, for her mother Trish, and for their family. Thanks.

[Follow-up: 08/09/04 07:16:43 AM.]

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 07/26/04 07:56:55 PM
Categorized as Religious.

"Human Personhood Begins at Conception"

An essay by Prof. Peter Kreeft, Ph.D.

Lege.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 07/26/04 07:32:55 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.

Shove It!

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCXXXVIII

'Shove It,' Heinz Kerry Says to Journalist.

Teresa Heinz Kerry urged home-state delegates to the Democratic National Convention to restore a more civil tone to politics, then minutes later told a journalist to "shove it."

"We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics," the wife of Democratic candidate Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) told fellow Pennsylvanians on Sunday night at a Massachusetts Statehouse reception.

Minutes later, Colin McNickle, editorial page editor of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, questioned her on what she meant by the term "un-American," according to a tape of the encounter recorded by Pittsburgh station WTAE-TV.

Heinz Kerry said, "I didn't say that" several times to McNickle. She turned to confer with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and others.

When she faced McNickle again a short time later, he continued to question her, and she replied, "You said something I didn't say. Now shove it."

Note the words "liberal" and "conservative" in that AP story.

Er... um... actually, note the word "conservative" in that AP story. Funny, how AP feels it necessary to identify what's conservative, but not what's liberal.

WTAE has more.

Comments made by Teresa Heinz Kerry following a pre-Democratic National Convention event are eliciting plenty of response Monday afternoon.

Heinz Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, urged home-state delegates from Pennsylvania to restore a more civil tone to American politics in a speech Sunday night.

"We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics," Heinz Kerry said during a reception at the Massachusetts Statehouse.

Minutes later, in an exchange that was captured on tape by Channel 4 Action News anchor Scott Baker and his photographer, Heinz Kerry told Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Colin McNickle to "shove it."

McNickle, the Trib's editorial page editor, had asked Heinz Kerry exactly what she meant by the term "un-American." Heinz Kerry said "I didn't say that" several times, then turned to speak with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and others. When she faced McNickle again a few minutes later, he continued to question her. She replied, "You said something I didn't say. Now shove it."

"This was sheer frustration, aimed at a right-wing rag that has consistently and purposely misrepresented the facts in reporting on Mrs. Kerry and her family," Heinz Kerry's spokeswoman, Marla Romash, told Baker.

Kerry, speaking in Orlando, Fla., where he was to hold a town hall meeting Monday, told reporters, "I think my wife speaks her mind appropriately."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, also defended Kerry's wife Monday.

"I think a lot of people would say, 'You go, girl,'" Clinton said.

The Trib released a statement backing McNickle Monday afternoon.

"Colin McNickle did just what any good reporter does — he asked questions. And the question he posed in this instance was legitimate," said the statement by Editor Frank Craig. "The tape of Teresa Heinz Kerry's speech shows she used the word 'un-American,' even though she denied it. It is unfortunate that she ruined what was an otherwise good message by resorting to exactly the type of tactics she was criticizing."

Before the encounter with McNickle, Heinz Kerry criticized the tenor of modern political campaigns, without being specific.

"I remember a time when people in political parties in Pennsylvania talked to one another and actually got things done," said Heinz Kerry, whose first husband, Republican Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania, was killed in a plane crash in 1991. "We have to go back to those days when we can do things properly, for the people need it."

"My prayers for you, for me, for the country, for the world, are that we keep this at a high level, with dignity, with respect and with a great idealism and courage that took our forefathers to build this great nation," she said.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Watch the video, available at the link above: you can see & hear Heinz Kerry saying "un-American" then denying at least five times that she had said it — accusing McNickle of putting words in her mouth!

I think this is a very revealing episode: Heinz Kerry is accustomed, I gather, to employing the term "un-American" — but only when sympathetic reporters and photographers are around, or none at all.

Colin McNickle has a fledgling weblog covering the convention. His columns are archived here.

See also "An Outbreak of Blindness", George W. Bush and (or?) Conservatism, and Socialism? It's Everywhere!

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 07/26/04 06:21:16 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.

Democratic National Convention 2004

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCCXXXVII

Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 07/26/04 05:53:30 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.

Earthshaking Announcement at NYT

The New York Times is a liberal newspaper.

Whodathunkit!

From the New York Times' "public editor" Daniel Okrent yesterday:

.... These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you've been reading the paper with your eyes closed.

But if you're examining the paper's coverage of these subjects from a perspective that is neither urban nor Northeastern nor culturally seen-it-all; if you are among the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide (devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, Texans); if your value system wouldn't wear well on a composite New York Times journalist, then a walk through this paper can make you feel you're traveling in a strange and forbidding world....

But it's one thing to make the paper's pages a congenial home for editorial polemicists, conceptual artists, the fashion-forward or other like-minded souls (European papers, aligned with specific political parties, have been doing it for centuries), and quite another to tell only the side of the story your co-religionists wish to hear. I don't think it's intentional when The Times does this. But negligence doesn't have to be intentional.

The gay marriage issue provides a perfect example. Set aside the editorial page, the columnists or the lengthy article in the magazine ("Toward a More Perfect Union," by David J. Garrow, May 9) that compared the lawyers who won the Massachusetts same-sex marriage lawsuit to Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King. That's all fine, especially for those of us who believe that homosexual couples should have precisely the same civil rights as heterosexuals.

But for those who also believe the news pages cannot retain their credibility unless all aspects of an issue are subject to robust examination, it's disappointing to see The Times present the social and cultural aspects of same-sex marriage in a tone that approaches cheerleading. So far this year, front-page headlines have told me that "For Children of Gays, Marriage Brings Joy," (March 19, 2004); that the family of "Two Fathers, With One Happy to Stay at Home," (Jan. 12, 2004) is a new archetype; and that "Gay Couples Seek Unions in God's Eyes," (Jan. 30, 2004). I've learned where gay couples go to celebrate their marriages; I've met gay couples picking out bridal dresses; I've been introduced to couples who have been together for decades and have now sanctified their vows in Canada, couples who have successfully integrated the world of competitive ballroom dancing, couples whose lives are the platonic model of suburban stability.

Every one of these articles was perfectly legitimate. Cumulatively, though, they would make a very effective ad campaign for the gay marriage cause. You wouldn't even need the articles: run the headlines over the invariably sunny pictures of invariably happy people that ran with most of these pieces, and you'd have the makings of a life insurance commercial....

Frankly, I think it no coincidence that Okrent ran with this article just before he starts a month-long vacation.

See also An Interlude of Breathtaking Honesty.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 07/26/04 08:12:53 AM
Categorized as Media.

Kerry Acceptance Speech Bingo Cards

Thanks to Paul for calling our attention to this neato collection of bingo cards for a game that might help keep you awake during John Kerry's acceptance speech Thursday evening.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 07/26/04 07:32:39 AM
Categorized as Political.