Sympathy or Scorn

I seldom follow the goings on in Hollywood but I came across an item aboutNicole Richie's Memorial Day Party at Fox News.

I have tried hard to protect my children from the insanity that is the Hollywood culture of hedonism, trash, stupidity and self-destruction. I think it is horrible that we elevate any of these losers. There ought to be some way to prevent people who have failed so miserably at managing their personal lives from being given celebrity status. In a more moral time these types would be held up for scorn and as a warning. They would not be the social elites but would be social outcasts.

Seems Nicole and her friend Mischa Barton (someone will have to enlighten me as to who the heck she is) decided to throw a Memorial Day Party. You can view the email invite at In Touch Weekly. Here is what the high class Nicole wrote (with all her typos in tact):

My fellow Americans its that time of year To celebrate our country by drinking massive amounts of beer
Let;s stand together as one, live the American dream
Take shots, pass out, & wake up with our pants ripped open at the seems
Let's glorify this day in your sluttiest tops and your tightest pair of tsubi jeans
Even though we have no [expletive censored but most likely f***ing] clue what Memorial Day really means!!...
There will be a scale at the front door. No girls over 100 pounds allowed in. Start starving yourself now. See you all then!!!

Mischa apparently had a bad reaction between the drinking and drugs she was taking and was taken to the hospital according to In Touch.

This presents for me a quandary. As a Christian we are called to love the sinner and hate the sin. Indeed, we are all sinful and have a propensity to be just as self destructive, just as hedonistic, just as selfish, just as reckless, just as...

So, I can see Nicole as worthy of sympathy. A lost, tragic figure who is partying her way to an early grave.

BUT! Part of me can't get past seeing her as just plain stupid and deserving of whatever she does to herself. Especially with her flippant attitude about Memorial Day. Men and women far nobler than her and her idiot Hollywood friends sacrificed so she could be a piece of human trash. Someone who so callously regards their freedom that they waste it entirely on self gratification doesn't deserve to live in a nation where such freedom is protected by people far better than her and pathetic group of friends.

Sympathy or scorn? Or both?

Chavez Implements Fairness Doctrine, Democrats Applaud Say US Is Next

Conservatives are rightly upset about rumblings in the Democratic party about reinstating the so called "fairness doctrine" on television and radio airwaves. This is, rightly again, seen as an effort to use the power of the government to control speech. Well now it has happened in that wonderful utopia known as Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

According to this ABC News story Chavez has replaced an independent television station with a state funded media source. Radio Caracas Television's broadcast license was not renewed and the station was replaced by TVES which opened its sure to be illustrious run as follows:

The new public channel, TVES, launched its transmissions with artists singing pro-Chavez music, then carried an exercise program and a talk show, interspersed with government ads proclaiming, "Now Venezuela belongs to everyone."

Everyone was so happy that Venezuela belonged to them that they hit the streets in protest. The government was so pleased with the response to their giving Venezuela to "everyone" that they sent police out to teargas and fire rubber bullets. Now, in fairness, there were protests in favor of the government take over of the station. After all, Stalin and Mao could turn out a crowd when they needed one, but that didn't make them less autocratic.

Chavez claimed the station was "subversive." That is revolutionary socialism's term for "complaining about the rise of totalitarianism."

What I find interesting is how similar this is to efforts to revive the fairness doctrine here at home. Democrats can't stand the fact that new media, especially talk radio, is dominated by opinions that aren't theirs. They especially can't stand that people like those opinions and tune in regularly to them. They've given up on competing in a free marketplace of ideas, as evidenced by the Air America flop, so they turn to the power of the state to get their way.

Notice this from the article:

The socialist president says he is democratizing the airwaves

Hmmmmm, have you heard any rhetoric like that from the democrats? How about this quote from Channel 2 News in Chicago:

"Look, we want to make sure that all positions are represented and we feel that there is an overwhelming bias right now,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-9th).

There are other similarities. ABC's story on Venezuela continues:

Founded in 1953, RCTV regularly topped viewer ratings with its talk shows, sports, soap operas and comedy programs. But Chavez accused the network of helping to incite a failed coup in 2002, violating broadcast laws and "poisoning" Venezuelans with programming that promoted capitalism. RCTV's managers deny wrongdoing.

The government promises TVES will be more diverse, buying 70 percent of its content from independent Venezuelan producers.

"We've come here to start a new television with the true face of the people, the face that was hidden, the face that they didn't allow us to show," said Roman Chalbaud, a pro-Chavez filmmaker appointed by the government to TVES' board of directors.

Conservative talk radio is popular and successful, and that is exactly why Democrats want to use the fairness doctrine to attack it. In Venezuela, RCTV was popular with everyone but Chavez and his fellow Stalinists, so it had to be replaced.

Can't you just see similar quotes coming from an FCC chairman appointed by a Democrat as he begins to bring legal action against radio and television stations that don't tow the party line?

I especially like the promise that the new station will represent "the true face of the people." This promise coming from..."a pro-Chavez filmmaker appointed by the government to TVES' board of directors. No doubt Mr. Chalbaud will be even handed in deciding which "independent" producers to buy programs from.

Here's a novel idea for the Democrats. Instead of using the power of the state to mandate what the media can say to the people, trust the people to be good consumers of the media. Try putting your ideas out there with eloquence and logic and let the media consumers accept or reject them.

What are they so afraid of? Apparently of democracy and freedom.

Update On Illinois Mall Terrorist

Back in December we had the story of Derrick Shareef an Islamofascist who hoped to kill Christmas shoppers at the Cherryvale Mall in Rockford, IL but was arrested while attempting to buy the weapons he hoped to use in the attack.

Well, as usual, the MSM virtually ignored the story and Shareef's plot was downplayed by those who tried to make him out to be the gullible victim of an FBI informant who led him on with suggestions of bombing a mall. But, there is more to this story folks!

Turns out Shareef is linked to terror suspect Hassan Abujihhad. The New Haven Register has more.

In a wiretap (aka unwarranted domestic spying in moonbatese), Abujihhad was heard speaking with Shareef about an article on Jihad just a few days before Shareef tried to purchase weapons for his planned mall attack. Abujihhad was connected with a UK jihadi publisher and may have provided information on US Naval ships and methods of attacking them. In fact, while serving in the US Navy, Abujihhad sent emails to the publisher praising jihad, Osama Bin Laden and specifically the attack on fellow sailors aboard the USS Cole.

The first link between the two was revealed back in March, when Abujihhad was arrested, but there has been little in our area papers. Here is an ABC News story including video.

Turns out the two may have lived together according to this CNN American Morning Transcript from back in March:

Miles, there is another twist. Abu Jihad was discharged from the Navy in 2002 before, of course, they knew about any of this. In 2004 he lived for a time with a man named Derrick Shareef. Shareef was arrested in December charged with plotting to set off grenades at a Rockford, Illinois shopping mall, during the Christmas season.

According to the criminal complaint, Shareef told authorities after his arrest, that he had been with Abujihaad when Abujihaad read an article about the classified Navy information found during the Azzam investigation. According to Shareef, Abujihaad said I think this is about me. He began to cry, threw away certain Azzam Publications and deleted related computer files. And by the way, if convicted of the charges, which are espionage and providing material support to terrorists, Abu Jihad faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison

An interesting twist indeed, our backyard jihadi who considered targets just a few miles from my home certainly seems to have been more deeply involved in the jihad world than we've been told.

MSM To America: "No Torture Here Folks, Move Along!"

Well it shouldn't come as a surprise, in fact Newsbusters predicted it. The MSM is ignoring torture, which you know just has to mean that this story is not about American soldiers allegedly torturing those poor Muslim extremists.

Here's the deal on this story. The Pentagon has released evidence seized from an Al-Qaeda safehouse in Iraq. The materials include illustrations of torture methods from a manual on the procedures. You can view the images at The Smoking Gun.

Now, think back to the Abu Ghraib coverage. The wall to wall, hourly updates. The photos, shown on nightly news, in the papers, on websites, in magazines, on the weekly news magazine programs...and on and on and on.

Well, the Al-Qaeda manual shows such delightful tactics as using power drills, gouging out eyes, and blow torches. Not only that, but the raids resulted in the seizure of implements of torture from an Al-Qaeda torture chamber and even resulted in the liberation of a captive who had been put through the rigors of Al-Qaeda torture. Earlier raids resulted in the freeing of others, including a boy.

Now, the media has had a few more days to catch up on this story, and in fairness, I wanted to make sure they had time to give this the same coverage given to the Abu Ghraib photos. So I did a LexisNexis search for the term "torture manual" and I found that the following MSM sources have run stories on this:

• The Mirror, on May 26, 2007 on page 27. Story length 9 sentences .
• CNN's The Situation Room, on May 23, 2007 gave mention to the story.

Now, I don't want to jump to conclusions that the MSM is only interested in stories that can be used to besmirch our troops, so I tried again. This time I did a "Past Day" search on Google News for the two torture stories, here are the results:

• "Torture Manual:" 3 stories
• "Abu Ghraib:" 1,765 stories

Remember, this is just for the past day, and only the torture manual story is breaking news!

If you think you can make the case that the MSM is not biased, go ahead and try it. I can't imagine you making the attempt without sounding like at least as unhinged as Rosie O'Donnell.

So, will the MSM ever put these images on our TV screens? Or how about the images of the poor souls freed from the Al Qaeda torture chambers? Will they even mention it. I think not, unless they try to claim that Al Qaeda was only responding to the US troops mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Will Ted Kennedy, who is reputed to be an expert in water torture, speak of this from the well of the Senate? How about our own Illinois Senator Dick(head) Durbin, who said our soldiers were like Nazis and the Khmer Rouge? Will he speak of this? Somehow, I doubt it.

Now, none of this is to excuse what those responsible at Abu Ghraib did. But, torture is not part of our policy, and we certainly don't publish manuals on it. When soldiers stepped over the line and committed such acts they were punished. Don't forget that the media obtained the photos because the military was already investigating allegations of abuse.

But, when terrorists cut off the heads of prisoners, when they beat and maim their captives, when they publish a torture manual and the military releases photos, the MSM yawns and looks for other ways to portray our troops as the bad guys. To hell with them!